Economist;
Born October 8, 1933;
Died November 1, 2007.

MARGARET Legum, who has died aged 74, was a radical economist, anti-apartheid campaigner and influential member of the ecumenical Iona Community.

She will probably be best remembered as the wife of Colin Legum (The Observer's famed Africa correspondent) and at first that may seem to belittle her. But the two of them were for many years an indivisible team who delivered some of the best left-of-centre writing to come out of the African continent during the slow death of apartheid. They co-wrote in 1963 the highly-influential South Africa: Crisis for the West , which advocated economic sanctions.

Legum was also in her own right a globally respected intellect, facilitator, academic, journalist and trainer and, after her husband's death in 2003, continued their work with an exciting and life-loving style.

She was also known as an influential member of the Iona Community, the ecumenical church movement, and her feisty and learned contributions to its meetings was often a gale of fresh air.

Legum was brought up in South Africa and educated at South Africa's Rhodes University before moving to Cambridge, where she acquired a degree in economics. She returned to Rhodes to study.

After having been expelled from South Africa in 1962 she returned after the end of apartheid and died there after an operation for cancer.

She was lively till the end, writing recently: "I am outraged at the appalling poverty (in South Africa) in the midst of unbelievable wealth and potential plenty for everyone. We can blame it on world economic factors over which we have no control."

She is survived by her daughters and grandchildren.