Source: Thomson Reuters Foundation                                                                                                                                                                                                While trying to empower women, it is essential not to marginalise men so to avoid an increase in acts of violence against women, a senior U.N. advisor said.

One of the Millennium Development Goals was the promotion of gender equality and women's empowerment as being necessary to end poverty and speed global development, said Amina J. Mohammed, U.N. special advisor on post-2015 development planning.

Now, as the 2015 MDG deadline approaches and new global goals are being discussed, it is crucial to ensure that no one is left behind in the push for progress, Mohammed told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in a recent interview in Stockholm.

"We need all human beings to achieve women's empowerment. We started to talk about this because one (gender) was disadvantaged towards the other, (but) in empowering women don't forget the men," she said.

Empowering women to participate fully in economic life is essential to build stronger economies, achieve development goals, and improve the quality of life not only for women themselves, but also for men and children, according to UN WOMEN.

Statistics show how women have been marginalized: women earn on average 10-30 percent less than men; in developing countries nine percent more men than women have a formal bank account; and 1.6 billion women live in economies with restrictions on the type of job they can do.

But the current focus on women's empowerment should not lead to the marginalisation of men, or women will be at risk of violence, she said – as had happened already in her native Nigeria.

"In many places, like my country, there's also been exclusion of men. Young men," said Mohammed.

In April more than 200 schoolgirls were abducted in northeastern Nigeria by members of the Islamist rebel group Boko Haram, who stormed a girls' school in Borno state, packed the students onto trucks and drove away. The girls have still not been rescued.

It was bad for the drive for women's education "(when) educated girls are being kidnapped by boys who are excluded and have become terrorists," said Mohammed.

"You see the leadership vacuum, a huge amount of barbaric conflict being perpetuated by men against women. You have to look to what is the root cause," she added.

The solution, she said, is to invest in people through education, and for each country to find its own solutions to the challenges it faces.

"We have to question how we invest in people first, make sure we have data and tools (and that) we don't leave anyone behind. We don't take a cookie cutter and say what happens in the U.S. must happen in Tanzania," she said.

"(And) if we make investments it's not charity: it's investing in people so you can live together more peacefully. Education needs to happen and young people are key."