Celebrating African Women: Meet Fatma Samba Diouf Samoura

African women have done some of the most remarkable feats on the continent and in the whole world at large, and such feats ought to be celebrated and be given the worth they deserve. African women continue to scale great heights and defy the gender barriers put in front of them by the various patriarchal societies they live in.

One such talent wee ought to celebrate is that of Fatma Samba Diouf Samoura. She currently is the FIFA Secretary-General, and for us, that lone hold a lot of weight. She was born in 1962 in Senegal. On 13 May 2016 she was appointed the first female Secretary General of FIFA by the president Gianni Infantino and effectively assumed her role one month later. Prior to that landmark post, she had worked extensively with the United Nations and its various arms for 21 years.

It was Fatma's stellar work at the United Nations that compelled Gianni Infantino to boldy put her into such a key administrative role at one of the biggest bodies in the sporting world. she served as Country Director for WFP in Djibouti and Cameroon and also worked at the WFP headquarters in Rome. She covered numerous complex emergencies, including Kosovo, Liberia, Nicaragua, Sierra Leone, and Timor-Leste (East Timor).

On 1 November 2007, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, in consultation with the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs John Holmes, appointed her as Deputy Humanitarian Coordinator (DHC) for eastern Chad. She is based in the town of Abéché, located approximately 80 kilometres west of the border with the Sudan's conflict-torn Darfur region. Chad currently hosts over 280,000 refugees and over 170,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs), most of whom are in the eastern region, and she was tasked with working for their return. The official's functions consist in providing support and guidance to a team composed of seven United Nations agencies and over 40 international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) working in eastern Chad.

On 1 November 2007, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, in consultation with the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs John Holmes, appointed her as Deputy Humanitarian Coordinator (DHC) for eastern Chad. She is based in the town of Abéché, located approximately 80 kilometres west of the border with the Sudan's conflict-torn Darfur region. Chad currently hosts over 280,000 refugees and over 170,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs), most of whom are in the eastern region, and she was tasked with working for their return.[6] The official's functions consist in providing support and guidance to a team composed of seven United Nations agencies and over 40 international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) working in eastern Chad.

She previously did not have any work experience in the sporting world but her marvellous, wonderful and industrious work made her the perfect candidate for the post. She is also a big driver of equality in football. Last year at FIFA’s Conference for Equality and Inclusion this year, she said, "Diversity is the only way forward. Not only because, morally, it is the right thing to do, but because there is richness in it. The group of people in this conference today is a solid example of this. It is a beautiful representation of what the world should be and what football can and should represent. And for that we do not need words, but actions."

For 112 years, FIFA did not have a woman representing them in the highest posts, but Fatma Samoura was able to break that barrier and made Africa proud, while also asserting the important role of women in society.