Nigeria’s former finance minister and one time managing director of the World Bank, Dr. Mrs. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala who, was confirmed the director general of the World Trade Organization, WTO Monday walked a long road to victory even though she made history as the first female and first African to lead the global body.
Having polled a total of 104 votes from the 164 member states of the WTO, to defeat South Korea’s YooMyung-hee, 53, the first woman from her country to head the Ministry of Commerce, Okonjo-Iwealawould have been named the DG of the organization last October but for the position of the United States Government under former president Donald Trump who kicked against her emergence through consensus.
But that momentary opposition changed with the election of Joe Biden in November last year and his subsequent swearing in as president on January 20 this year paving the way for the Nigerian to have a last laugh.
She is coming at a time the world economy is facing daunting challenges due to the COVID-19 pandemic while many view her victory as a tremendous boost not only for Nigeria but Africa as a continent.
Okonjo-Iweala will have to lead the charge for a revival of multilateralism, in the negotiating chambers of the WTO and for a better deal for developing economies, as well as for the practical matter of how reforming trade and patent rules can allow the distribution of life saving vaccines and therapeutics as the coronavirus pandemic rips across the world on its second wave.
As the first woman and African to head the trade body, Okonjo-Iweala has a chance to put Africa’s plans to build the world’s biggest free trade area on the top table, pointing to the productive and market opportunities on the continent.
Her predecessor, Brazil’s Robert Azevêdo, left the post early after years of frustration at the logjams in negotiation on reforming the WTO.
Those negotiations have been made harder still by the eruption of a trade war between the US and China alongside sporadic outbreaks of economic nationalism across the globe.
Surely this must be the worst time to take over an organization dedicated multilateral trade agreements.
During campaigns, she had said that “The COVID-19 pandemic has shown that this is the time we need to act in solidarity to have multilateral solutions, because there are simply some things in the world that bilateral or even sub-regional solutions cannot solve”.
On the distribution of vaccines and drugs to fight the pandemic, she said, she would prioritize open access.
“Being involved in COVID-19 and vaccines now as the chair of GAVI and an envoy on the Act accelerator, I am seeing it from the front lines and we want to make sure that we don’t have a situation where access to vaccines for other countries where they are not made is blocked. The world is so interconnected now that no one is safe until everyone is safe, and no country is safe until all countries are safe,” she stated..
This, she acknowledged, will take tough negotiations with the drugs companies and with national governments but she insisted it would take top priority.
“This is an area where we really need to think through the trade regime and the rules that will govern these kinds of products, whilst respecting country’s desires to do a minimum for their security,” she stated.
In 2011, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala became the minister of finance in Nigeria, served as the co-ordinating minister of the economyand later minister of foreign affairs from 2003-2006.
Before taking up appointments minister, she was the managing director of the World Bank Group from December 1, 2007 until August 2011. As finance minister, she led Nigeria’s economic team responsible for implementing the Obasanjo administration’s far reaching economic and social reforms agenda.
The reforms made particular progress in restoring macroeconomic stability, tripling growth, initiating a strong fight against corruption, and increasing transparency.
She serves as a Member of the Board of Governors of African Development Bank. She is a recipient of numerous awards and honoursincluding Time Magazine European Hero 2004, Euromoney Magazine Global Finance Minister of the year 2005, Financial Times/The Banker African Finance Minister of the year 2005, This Day Nigeria Minister of the Year 2004 and 2005, Honorary Doctorate of Laws from Colby College in 2007, and Brown University in 2006, Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters, Northern Caribbean University, Jamaica.
Dr. Okonjo-Iweala graduated in Economics from Harvard University and holds a PhD in Regional Economics and Development from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, United States.
