Millions of women across the globe farm and look after land – yet are excluded from owning it, hurting their incomes, depriving them of wealth and undermining their other basic rights. Anandita Ghosh and Shivani Satija on a wide-ranging issue of the Oxfam-edited Gender and Development journal that not only examines structural obstacles to women owning land but also looks at broader themes, including the way deprivation of land rights adds to women’s care workload – and, crucially, how securing women’s land and water rights will be essential for global food security and climate resilience.

An estimated 10 million people will head from North to South this year as volunteers, seeking a mix of adventure, altruism and self improvement. Volunteering is big (a $2bn industry), but is it beautiful? Learning Service: The Essential Guide to Volunteering Abroad, a 350 page tome aimed at informing and guiding would-be volunteers, left me with very mixed feelings on