Under the auspices of the U.S. Department of State, the Ford Foundation, Georgetown University, and the African-American Institute, more than 75 scholars and other specialists convened at the Shoreham Hotel, Washington, D.C., to exchange views on problems of political and social change in francophone Africa, and to discuss them with a much wider audience of government officials and diplomats from Africa, Western Europe, Canada, and the United States. The programme, the first of its kind ever held in the United States, was organised and directed by Dr William H. Lewis of Georgetown University.