This e-book contains the first English translation of a unique report on women living under the colonial rule in West Africa. Denise Savineau's 'Report on Women and the Family in French West Africa' (1938), which is held in the National Archives of Senegal, highlights the French colonial social development agenda. Through an analysis of this dicument, this e-book highlights parallels with the development agenda of today. The interrelationship between contemporary social policy-making and that of colonial rule raises pertinent questions about the cultural foundations of contemporary West African social development policy, and about the direction policy is following in the twenty-first century.