An analysis of the World Bank’s Policy Research Report (PRR) from a gender perspective and a contribution to an e-mail discussion on it. Looks at whether the latest draft has addressed the failings of an earlier version. Focuses on the notion of non-contractable labour; the household as a unit of analysis; motivated family labour; the consequences of default; equity and poverty reduction strategies; bringing women’s rights onto the agenda.

The conference was part of a series of activities by ACTS seeking to improve knowledge on the links between natural resources and violent conflict. Includes full conference papers on Burundi, Eastern DRC, Rwanda, Kenya, Sudan, Somalia, Zimbabwe, North Kivu, as well as overview papers on a research agenda on land tenure and land reform, human-centred environmental security, Oxfam GB and land in post-conflict situations in Africa, and group discussion reports, conclusions, references.

Workshop report draws on a larger research report examining the massively changed context for livestock policy following fast track land reform. Themes discussed were production, grazing, fodder and drought responses, marketing, livestock disease and veterinary services.

Covers workshop organization, the opening session, reports by consultants from East, West and Southern Africa, presentations by resource persons; group sessions, mission statement, closing remarks.

Concerns the Senhuile-Senethanol investment in Ndiael, Senegal. Includes chronology of a dubious investment; social and environmental characteristics of the Ndiael area; consultation with local communities: a fool’s game; key information still missing; social and environmental impacts; corporate social responsibility projects: whitewashing or buying complacency?; conclusion and recommendations.

Examines some contemporary policy discourses on land tenure reform in sub-Saharan Africa and their implications for women’s interests in land. Demonstrates an emerging consensus among a range of influential policy institutions (including the World Bank, IIED and Oxfam GB), lawyers and academics about the potential of so-called customary systems of land tenure to meet the needs of all land users and claimants. African women lawyers are much more equivocal about trusting the customary, preferring to look to the State for laws to protect women’s interests.

Chapters cover access to and distribution of land; land tenure, resource control, and conflicts; non-agricultural production strategies; agrarian labour processes and social relations; social services and reproduction strategies; local ‘grievances’ and social organisation; agrarian structure and class formation; emerging agrarian questions and politics.

Analyses the World Bank’s Policy Research Report (PRR) from a gender perspective and is critical of the consultation process on it thus far. It has important implications for women in Africa. The Bank believes land should be viewed not as a source of subsistence but of capital. It ignores women’s unpaid labour as a factor in agricultural productivity. It treats the household as an undifferentiated unit and ignores that the family often functions as a site of oppression. The Bank stresses ‘motivated’ family labour but ignores that much of women’s labour is far from voluntary.

Includes increased priority to land reform, development versus redistribution, an economic-oriented land reform, support following land redistribution, gender, securing land tenure, poverty and marginalisation, HIV/AIDS, mineral rights and land rights.

Includes women’s land rights and tenure security in a context of legal pluralism and land tenure privatization; competing legal systems and land rights protection on the ground � what is going wrong? Argues that in a context of increasing land scarcity, high population pressure and progressing land tenure privatization, men are increasingly taking advantage of their superior position within the patrilineal tenure system, advancing their own interests at the expense of weaker family members, first and foremost the women in the family.

Includes historical perspective – native land settlement scheme, Lifa land purchasing programme, Rural Development Areas Programme, some lessons learned, prospects for land reform, Land Policy objectives and principles.

Includes the global scramble for land; drivers of land grabs – global crisis and public incentives; counting the cost of land grabs (disempowerment and marginalisation, displaced communities, human rights violations, women bear the brunt, lost livelihoods and increased food insecurity, social breakdown and cultural impacts); developing alternative models of investment; conclusions and recommendation to governments.