Which countries have laws preventing violence against women? Which legislate for gender equality? And which countries allow abortion? To launch our new section on the Global development site, looking at women's rights and gender equality, we've taken World Bank and UN data to offer a snapshot of women's rights around the world. Women's hard-won rights are under pressure from reactionary policies. Working in partnership with two organisations – Mama Cash and Awid – we want our new section to offer a safe forum for debate and for sharing ideas, a place to that amplifies the voices of women's rights advocates.
Elsewhere on the site
Ghana struggling to translate oil money into development gains
Sexual slavery in Mexico – a pimp tells his story
Tata Nano safety under scrutiny after dire crash test results
Female genital mutilation affects a fifth of young girls in sub-Saharan Africa
Move over quinoa, Ethiopia's teff poised to be next big super grain
On the blog
Anna Turley and Zohra Moosa: Why progress in women's rights has been compromised
Mark Tran: Needs of least developed countries in danger of being sidelined
Claire Melamed: Development data: how accurate are the figures?
Tanya Barron: Empowering girls is about rights, not just economics
Alex Renton: Get a taste for teff, the Ethiopian superfood
Multimedia
• Video: Leprosy in Brazil - uncovering a hidden disease
• In pictures: Sierra Leone - law and order meets traditional justice
• Video: Tata Nano falls short of global crash test standards
Guardian Witness
Why does violence against women occur? Have you been involved in a campaign to fight it? Share your stories with Guardian Witness and help us build a global picture
Coming up
This week the Guardian will launch a campaign to end female genital mutilation.
We report from the Philippines, three months after typhoon Haiyan.
The next instalment of our world library series will focus on books featuring Iran.
We will report from Ivory Coast on the impact of its mining industry.
What you said: this week's top reader comment
On our feature on Ethiopian teff, wigley wrote:
As others have said a price rise would be dire for the poorest and would need farmers to get a fair price. The commitment to increasing the crop is longstanding and there is a well-established Tef [sic] breeding and improvement programme run through the Ethiopian Institute for Agricultural Research (EIAR) at various sites through the country. The increasing wealth of Addis Ababa is not matched by the more rural areas (although there are improvements to life quality) and a price hike for Tef would impact on food security for those in rural areas unless there is a fair distribution. Our experience (we have a research project on poultry health with EIAR) is that food supply in rural towns is patchy, with Tef and beans forming the core of the diet.
Highlight from the blogosphere
Saule Ospanova: Kazakhstan: Green economy of the future?
And finally …
Poverty matters will return in two weeks with another roundup of the latest news and comment. In the meantime, keep up to date on the Global development website. Follow @gdndevelopment and the team – @MaeveShearlaw, @ClaireProvost, @LizFordGuardian and @MarkTran – on Twitter, and join Guardian Global development on Facebook.
