The arrest of six policemen for last week’s murder of protestor Andries Tatane is ‘a quick ploy to take attention away from the systemic factors that inform police brutality’, says Mphutlane wa Bofelo. Shouldn’t the country’s police force protect the interests of communities rather than criminalising service delivery protests?

Oxfam, ActionAid, and ACORD with support from others are convening the African Women’s Land Rights Conference, to be held from 30 May to 2 June 2011 in Nairobi, Kenya. The conference will bring together women’s and land rights activists and organisations including farmer associations, pastoralist groups, women survivor groups, lawyers, parliamentarians and academics that are committed to strengthening women’s rights in Africa.

The re-establishment of local councils in Sierra Leone in 2004 was intended to give people a greater voice in their government, reversing long years of marginalisation for rural districts in particular. But nearly seven years later, it has still not been fully implemented. A local NGO, Campaign for the Voiceless, is working to strengthen the performance of this most accessible tier of government. The campaign is working on a project intended to improve social accountability in local government.