Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala: The WTO’s Trailblazing Motivator

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, reappointed on Friday as head of the World Trade Organization, hinged her leadership on breaking logjams at the sclerotic institution through craft, dynamism and sheer force of personality.

The World Bank veteran, 70, &nbsp, is a trailblazer. She is the first African woman to lead the WTO and the first woman to hold the position of Nigeria’s first female finance minister.

She established herself as a person who could bang heads together and accomplish things because of her no-nonsense personality and dislike of red tape.

In addition to completing a long-stalled agreement to end subsidies for harmful fishing practices, Okonjo-Iweala has made some breakthroughs at the international trade body.

But now she must guide the WTO in Donald Trump’s US presidency, which the organization was without for a while after he paralyzed it and who had initially criticized her for his initial bid for the presidency.

READ ALSO: Okonjo-Iweala Reappointed WTO DG

– ‘ Forget business as usual ‘ –

In March 2021, Okonjo-Iweala assumed control of a group that was struggling to help its members deal with the severe global economic slump brought on by the coronavirus pandemic.

“Forget business as usual”, she pledged before taking the reins.

Since taking over the 166-member WTO, Okonjo-Iweala has overseen two of its biennial ministerial conferences.

The director-general’s results were exhibited at the WTO’s Geneva headquarters in 2022, demonstrating the round-the-clock resolve required to close international trade deals.

Countries came to an agreement to end harmful fishing subsidies in the first stage of a long-awaited agreement, as well as terms involving temporary waivers of Covid-19 vaccine patents.

The second conference, in Abu Dhabi this year, secured nothing more than a temporary extension of an e-commerce moratorium, casting fresh doubt on the WTO’s effectiveness.

While Okonjo-Iweala frequently attends press conferences, she rarely holds press conferences, despite the fact that she frequently travels the world to attend meetings of top finance ministers and heads of diplomatic relations.

From September 2025, she would be the only candidate to lead the WTO.

“Ngozi brings a huge amount of personal authority, credibility and capability to what’s a challenging and difficult role”, Britain’s trade minister Douglas Alexander told AFP last month.

She clearly has an ambitious agenda in terms of trade and environmental interaction.

He praised her “steady leadership, her deep commitment to the interests of the Global South, and her understanding, as a former finance minister, of the imperative of trade for all of our economies”.

– Harvard, MIT training –

Born in 1954 in Ogwashi Ukwu, in Delta State, western Nigeria, Okonjo-Iweala is the daughter of a traditional ruler.

She and her neurosurgeon husband, Ikemba Iweala, have four children and five grandchildren.

She is often surrounded by her loved ones and she always warmly thanks her husband, who attended both ministerial conferences, for his support.

She graduated from Harvard University, where she later sent her four children, before receiving a master’s degree and a doctorate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and spent the majority of her life there. She is a development economist by training.

Okonjo-Iweala had a 25-year career at the World Bank, eventually becoming its number two.

She was the Washington-based institution’s managing director and ran for the top job in 2012.

Her first term as Nigeria’s finance minister, from 2003 to 2006, was followed by two months as the foreign minister.

She was the first woman to hold both positions.

She returned to the finance minister brief from 2011 to 2015 under president Goodluck Jonathan.

In an interview, Okonjo-Iweala claimed that her mother had been abducted because she was a champion for the country’s rampant corruption.

However, her supporters claimed that while she was in power, she did not do enough to combat corruption.

Additionally, Okonjo-Iweala held numerous directorships at organizations like the Rockefeller Foundation and Standard Chartered Bank.

She presided over Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, and served on the Twitter board of directors.

Okonjo-Iweala defeated seven other candidates to become WTO head when Roberto Azevedo left early in August 2020.

Source: Channels TV