Nigerian former Minister of Finance, Mrs Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala has been formally appointed as the next World Trade Organisation (WTO) Director-General. She becomes the first woman and first African to hold this post.
The announcement was made on the organisation’s Twitter handle.
She had been earmarked for the position as far back as October 2020 from WTO’s current Director-General, Roberto Azevêdo who stepped down on 31 August, 2020, a year before the end of his tenure.
The process of appointing someone to succeed Mr Azevêdo took a long time as the European Union backed Nigeria’s Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala while the United States backed South Korea’s Myung-hee, South Korea’s trade chief. Then the former US President Trump’s administration blocked the consensus to appoint Okonjo-Iweala.
With the entry of the new Biden administration, the US strongly swung behind her candidacy shortly after the only other remaining contender, South Korean’s Myung-hee, pulled out.
Her term is to start on the 1st of March 2021.
“This is a very significant moment for the WTO. On behalf of the General Council, I extend our warmest congratulations to Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala on her appointment as the WTO’s next Director-General and formally welcome her to this General Council meeting,” said General Council Chair David Walker of New Zealand who, together with co-facilitators Amb. Dacio Castillo (Honduras) and Amb. Harald Aspelund (Iceland) led the nine-month DG selection process.
“Dr Ngozi, on behalf of all members I wish to sincerely thank you for your graciousness in these exceptional months, and for your patience. We look forward to collaborating closely with you, Dr Ngozi, and I am certain that all members will work with you constructively during your tenure as Director-General to shape the future of this organization,” he added.
Dr Okonjo-Iweala said a key priority for her would be to work with members to quickly address the economic and health consequences brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I am honoured to have been selected by WTO members as WTO Director-General,” said Dr Okonjo-Iweala. “A strong WTO is vital if we are to recover fully and rapidly from the devastation wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic. I look forward to working with members to shape and implement the policy responses we need to get the global economy going again. Our organization faces a great many challenges but working together we can collectively make the WTO stronger, more agile and better adapted to the realities of today.”
The World Trade Organization is the only global international organization dealing with the rules of trade between nations. At its heart are the WTO agreements, negotiated and signed by the bulk of the world’s trading nations and ratified in their parliaments. The goal is to help producers of goods and services, exporters, and importers conduct their business.
The WTO officially started on 1 January 1995 under the Marrakesh Agreement, signed by 123 nations on 15 April 1994, replacing the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which commenced in 1948.
Mrs Okonjo-Iweala graduated magna cum laude with an AB in Economics from Harvard University, in 1976. She also has a PhD in regional economics and development from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Okonjo-Iweala spent 25 years at the World Bank as a development economist, rising to the No. 2 position of Managing Director. As Managing Director, she had oversight responsibility for the World Bank’s $81 billion operational portfolio in Africa, South Asia, Europe and Central Asia.
She served twice as Nigeria’s Finance Minister and also as Minister of Foreign Affairs. She was the first female to hold both positions.
Mrs Okonjo-Iweala sits on a number of boards including Standard Chartered Bank, Twitter, Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI), and the African Risk Capacity (ARC).
