Bras\u00edlia \u2013 Former Nigerian finance minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala was appointed on Monday (15) as the first woman and first African director-general of the World Trade Organization (WTO). Okonjo-Iweala starts her new job in early March, and her term, renewable, will expire on August 31, 2025.<\/p>\n
She will replace Brazilian diplomat Roberto Azev\u00eado, who left office last September. The office was vacant since then because Donald Trump administration supported the South Korean rival Yoo Myung-hee, and this deal must be agreed by consensus. The endorsement of the Biden administration cleared the last obstacle to her appointment.<\/p>\n
A self-declared \u201cdoer\u201d with a track record of taking on seemingly intractable problems, Okonjo-Iweala will have her work cut out for her. As director-general, a position that wields limited formal power, Okonjo-Iweala will need to broker international trade talks in the face of persistent United States-China conflict, respond to pressure to reform trade rules, and counter protectionism heightened by the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n
In her acceptance speech at the WTO, she said that getting a trade deal at the next major ministerial meeting would be a \u201ctop priority\u201d and also urged members to reject vaccine nationalism, according to a delegate attending the closed meeting, which was held virtually. In the same speech, she described the challenges facing the body as \u201cnumerous and tricky but not insurmountable.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nigerian<\/strong><\/p>\n A 25-year veteran of the World Bank, where she oversaw an USD81 billion portfolio, Okonjo-Iweala ran against seven other candidates by espousing a belief in trade\u2019s ability to lift people out of poverty. She studied development economics at Harvard after experiencing civil war in Nigeria as a teenager. She returned to the country in 2003 to serve as finance minister and backers point to her hard-nose negotiating skills that helped seal a deal to cancel billions of dollars of Nigerian debt with the Paris Club of creditor nations in 2005.<\/p>\n Translated by Guilherme Miranda<\/strong><\/p>\n