Marie Humbert's voice for women’s equality in Africa is one that resonates.

The Swiss-Ghanaian actress, who has lived in nine countries on four continents, represents an emerging class of African entertainers who are making their voices heard and bringing attention to social issues they are passionate about.

For Humbert, who is an Oxfam Ghana Enough! project advocate, her life and profession has taken her all over the world but women’s empowerment and African identity have been a consistent thread throughout — the social items she has been most passionate about.

It’s not hard to see why: no country in the world is on track to achieve the United Nations’ global goal for gender parity between men and women by 2030. COVID-19 has also pulled back a lot of the progress made as women have been disproportionately affected by the impact of the pandemic.

Furthermore, Africa lags behind the rest of the world in achieving the UN’s Global Goals, including the goal to achieve gender equality by 2030.

Women in northAfrica hold less than one in five paid jobs in the non-agricultural sector while women in Nigeria and many other African countries are faced with harmful cultural practices like FGM, poverty, economic inequality, misogynistic laws, and political exclusion.

These issues drive Humbert’s activism and against the backdrop of the Generation Equality Forum, a global gathering for gender equality convened by UN Women and co-hosted by the governments of Mexico and France that has been taking place in Paris from June 30 - July 2.

Global Citizen spoke with Marie Humbert about women empowerment in Africa and why we must all #ActForEqual to achieve gender equality.

Read the full article about gender equality in Africa by Akindare Okunola at Global Citizen.