Giving Compass' Take:

• UN officials recently discussed a gender equality index that takes into how well countries are doing when it comes to empowering women. 

• How will the UN hold countries accountable that are falling behind according to the index?

• Read the Giving Compass Gender Equality Guide for donors to learn more. 

Gender inequality is one of the greatest barriers to human development progress, UN officials said as they launched an index on Friday showing the countries making the biggest strides and those falling behind.

"We cannot talk of human development without taking into account 50 percent of the population," said Selim Jahan, lead author of the Human Development Report.

Gender equality and women's empowerment is absolutely critical. It's not a side issue.

Studies show that when girls stay in education they have more opportunities and healthier, better educated children, which in turn boosts national development.

Jahan said countries needed to address issues including child marriage, the lack of women in politics, the burden of domestic work and low levels of female land ownership. The report by the United Nations Development Programme, which compiled the first index in 1990, said the world had made significant progress on many fronts, but was "increasingly unequal, unstable and unsustainable".

"Impressive progress has been made," Jahan told a media briefing. "But the achievements have been unequal ... We are living in an unequal and divided world.""This profoundly serious crisis threatens the human development of current and future generations," the report said. "Business-as-usual approaches must change."

Read the full article about gender equality by Emma Batha at Global Citizen