Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Nigeria’s ex-minister of finance has been elected as the Director-General of the World Trade Organisation (WTO).
Okonjo-Iweala received 104 votes from 164 member countries to defeat her South Korea’s trade minister opponent, at the final stage of the race.
As a result of winning the election, she becomes the first African to occupy that office and she would run the organisation for four years.
Okojo-Iweala who was appointed in July 2011 as a finance minister, will replace Roberto Azevêdo who stepped down as WTO Director-General on 31 August 2020, a year before the expiry of his mandate.
Following his announcement in May 2020 that he would step down early, the selection process to appoint a new Director-General was launched by General Council Chair David Walker of New Zealand.
Okonjo-Iweala will definitely have her hands full and one of the disputes that she would look to resolve in the immediate future is the US-China Trade dispute.
The WTO is an international organisation that deals with the rules of trade between countries. It was founded in 1995 as a successor to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which came into force in 1948.
The WTO describes its principal function as being to provide a forum for its members to negotiate on trade issues. It operates a body of rules in the form of the WTO agreements. Finally, it provides a dispute settlement mechanism (DSM) to resolve disagreements over the rules between members.
Some of the functions of the WTO include but not limited to:
- Administering WTO trade agreements.
- Forum for trade negotiations.
- Handling trade disputes.
- Monitoring trade policies.
- Technical assistance and training for developing economies.
- Cooperation with other international organizations.
Profile of Dr. Ngozi Nkonjo-Iweala
Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is former Minister of Finance for the Federal Republic of Nigeria, appointed in July 2011. She previously served as a Managing Director of the World Bank where she had oversight responsibility for the World Bank’s operational portfolio in Africa, South Asia, and Europe, and Central Asia.
From June to August 2006, she was Minister of Foreign Affairs of Nigeria, overseeing Nigeria’s External Relations; and from July 2003 to June 2006 she served a prior term as Minister of Finance and Economy of Nigeria and head of Nigeria’s much-acclaimed Presidential Economic team responsible for implementing a comprehensive home-grown economic reform program that stabilized the macro-economy and tripled the growth rate to an average 6% per annum over three years.
Her achievements as Finance Minister garnered international recognition for improving Nigeria’s financial stability and fostering greater fiscal transparency to combat corruption. In October 2005, she led the Nigerian team that negotiated the cancellation of 60% of Nigeria’s external debt ($18 billion) with the Paris Club.
The debt deal also included an innovative buy-back mechanism that wiped out Nigeria’s Paris Club debt and reduced the country’s external indebtedness from $35 billion to $5 billion. Dr. Okonjo-Iweala oversaw Nigeria’s first Sovereign credit rating of BB—from Fitch and Standard and Poor’s—a rating that grouped Nigeria with other emerging market countries such as Vietnam, Venezuela, and the Philippines.
