Remortgaging Women's Lives: The World Bank'sLand Agenda in Africa

In recent months, the World Bank has issued a series of draft policy reports on land relations. This is the first time in over two decades that the Bank has sought to review its policy on lending in the land sector. Access to the draft reports and participation in the consultation process has, however, been severely limited. Nonetheless, the World Bank expects to issue the final Report by the end of this year. This paper presents a gender analysis of the two draft documents that have been made available to date. It assesses their implications for gender relations in Africa. It explores the World Bank's promotion of formal rural credit and challenges the assumption of the availability of women's unpaid agricultural labour. The paper argues that, far from being over, the struggle over land relations which has characterised the last decade in Africa, must continue. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

The International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Act 2015: Legislative Spending Targets,Poverty Alleviation and Aid Scrutiny

With the enactment of the International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Act 2015, the United Kingdom has enshrined an aid target in law. It is now under a legal duty to spend 0.7% of Gross National Income (GNI) each year on aid. This article assesses the implications of enshrining a spending target for development assistance in law. It argues that commentators have focused their analyses too narrowly on the legal target and that it is in fact the mechanisms for scrutinising development assistance contained in section 5 of the new Act that will be important in future. This is because judicial scrutiny of aid spending is a remote possibility as a result of the International Development Act 2002. The article provides an analysis of the new legislation in the context of the UK's now detailed legislative framework for international development aid and concludes that this framework is far from satisfactory.     

'Like a Mask Dancing': Law and Colonialism in Chinua Achebe's Arrow of God

Whilst the study of law and literature is now well established in the western academy, little attention has been paid to portrayals of law in African literature. In addition, studies of the colonial state by lawyers, political scientists, and historians have neglected African fiction's long engagement in this area. Achebe's fiction prefigured many of the issues engaging critics and theorists on the wider social scientific terrain. This paper draws on Achebe's simile –'the world is like a mask dancing' ndash; to delineate an approach to power and authority. The lesson of Arrow of God – that the 'legal world' cannot be understood by standing in one place – is of wider significance to those engaged in the study of law and society.     

Land reform in the shadow of the state: The implementation of new land laws in Sub-Saharan Africa

The importance of effective implementation of new land laws and the difficulties associated with it are alluded to in almost every recent piece of writing on African land reform. However, the process of implementation has remained neglected and little theorised. Drawing on a body of political science and policy studies literature which considers implementation and the difficulties to which it gives rise, this paper will attempt to advance a critical approach to the role of law in altering land relations in Africa. It will use the experiences of Tanzania, Uganda and South Africa to illustrate that, while some barriers to implementation are easily identified, and therefore receive relatively more attention, there are other important factors which might hamper attempts to change land relations. It is usual to understand land reform as direct state intervention in property relations. However, this paper will argue that the capacity of the state in Africa to carry out land reform is severely limited. The paper therefore attempts to identify an altogether different set of actors in the reform process. Its starting point will be the observation that land reform may take place less as a result of direct state action and more as a consequence of the actions of private individuals within the state.     

Eliminating Poverty? ‘Financial Inclusion’, Access to Land,and Gender Equality in International Development

The UK White Paper on International Development published in 2009 explicitly links access to financial services with poverty reduction. In doing so, it echoes the policies the World Bank set out in its 2008 Policy Research Report on Finance. This paper offers a detailed analysis of these development policies and connects the current plans for the expansion of financial sectors in the developing world with policies that promote the acquisition of formal land title. The paper argues that as asset‐backed lending expands, commercial banks will come to play an increasingly important role in third world economies. In light of this, it reviews important first‐hand accounts of the difficulties of drafting legislation to protect women's access to land in the face of opposition from commercial lenders, using Tanzania and Uganda as illustrative examples. The paper assesses the implications of expanding access to credit for gender equality and concludes that it is difficult to reconcile the promotion of financial inclusion with the aim of international development to end poverty.     

Correction to: Feminist Judgments Projects at the Intersection

Feminist Legal Studies - In the original publication of the article, errors in the production stages resulted in Vanessa Munro being listed as sole author.     

'Mind with Mind and Spirit with Spirit': Lord Denning and African Legal Education

Lord Denning played an important role in the establishment and development of legal education and lawyers' training in Africa from the late 1950s onwards. By exploring this involvement it is possible to add to existing work on Denning's vision of the role of law and legal professionalism. In post-colonial Africa, order and stability were best assured by a cadre of lawyers imbued with the virtues characteristic of English practitioners over the centuries. These ineffable qualities could only be apprehended through direct contact with English lawyers and, to a lesser extent, law teachers. These views are born of the tension between universalism and nationalism in Denning's legal thought.