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| Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala (Director General, WTO) |
The World Trade Organization has
appointed Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala as its new Director-General, making her the
first woman and first African to hold the role. Dr Okonzo-Ijeawala served as
Nigeria's finance minister and worked for 25 years as a specialist in development
economics at the World Bank. She says she can be a "clear set of
eyes" for the global trade body.
On Monday, the WTO’s 164 members
unanimously selected the 66-year-old development economist to serve a four-year
term as director general. Okonjo-Iweala will take over the institution, with
its budget of $220m and staff of 650, at a critical time.
After
four years of bruising battles between Washington and Beijing over
protectionist tariffs and import quotas that badly damaged global trade,
Okonjo-Iweala is expected to set about bridging a growing divide between the
administrations running the world’s first and second largest economies.
Speaking
after her appointment, Okonjo-Iweala said her top priority was to ensure the
WTO does more to address the coronavirus pandemic, saying members should
accelerate efforts to lift export restrictions slowing trade in needed
medicines and supplies, and warned of the danger posed by “vaccine
nationalism”.
“No one
is safe until everyone is safe,” she told Reuters. “Vaccine nationalism at this
time just will not pay, because the variants are coming. If other countries are
not immunised, it will just be a blow-back. It’s unconscionable that people will
be dying elsewhere, waiting in a queue, when we have the technology.”
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