Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe, was the delightful setting for the first regional conference of the International Association for the History of Religions ever held in Africa. More than thirty invited scholars from many parts of Africa, particularly Southern Africa, as well as Europe and the United States, gathered on the University of Zimbabwe campus. theme of the conference was The Study of Religions in Africa and we were appropriately hosted by the Department of Religious Studies, Classics and Philosophy, under the leadership of Dr. Ephraim Mandivenga. proceedings were ably coordinated and organized by Dr. James Cox of that department and Dr. Jan Platvoet of Leiden University. Vice Chancellor, Professor G. L. Chavunduka, himself a renowned scholar of and activist for African traditional healing, welcomed us to the campus, together with Professor J. S. Kruger, president of the Association for the Study of Religion in Southern Africa. Professor R. Abubakre from the University of Ilorin in Nigeria, who is a member of the IAHR executive, declared the conference open. It fell to the IAHR Secretary-General, Professor Michael Pye, to set the tone for the conference, in his address entitled, Intercultural Strategies and the International Association for the History of Religions: a Policy Statement Given the increasing regional diversification and intercultural extension of the work of the IAHR, he emphasized the neutrality of the organization and its need to maintain methodological independence from specific religious standpoints. He stressed the point that the IAHR is a non-religious, not irreligious body—it does not discourage participation by scholars working in religious institutions