UNITED NATIONS, March 15 (Xinhua) -- UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina J. Mohammed on Thursday called for stronger accountability and financing to reach "lagging" gender targets.

Speaking at the Women's Empowerment Principles Forum at the UN headquarters in New York, Mohammed said: "We need to strengthen accountability for gender equality commitments at all levels."

"Targets and pledges are not enough. We need to hold people to them," the UN deputy chief noted.

"We need to put gender equality at the center of implementation," she said, adding: "Women's access to economic resources, land, labor market earnings, social protection is essential for eradicating poverty, reducing inequality, better education, health and nutritional outcomes and the achievement of inclusive growth."

The deputy secretary-general urged closing the financing gap, saying that without adequate resources, many of the essential services on which women and girls depend "will remain unavailable or inadequate."

Speaking of other measures to close the gender gap, Mohammed urged efforts "to improve monitoring."

"We need hard facts on what works for women and girls, so that we can change direction if needed," she noted.

"Gender equality and women's economic empowerment are an economic and business imperative," Mohammed said.

Gender equality, as both an objective and driver of sustainable development, is key to achieving all the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, she said.

However, Mohammed complained that "progress is lagging behind aspiration," noting that there are "pervasive gender inequalities in every dimension of sustainable development."

The UN deputy chief noted that there is still a long way to go before the gender gap is closed, citing brand-new data on extreme poverty in 89 countries as showing that globally there are 4.4 million more women than men living on less than 1.90 U.S. dollars a day and the gender pay gap stands at a stubborn 23 percent globally.