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Okonjo-Iweala becomes first woman, African to lead WTO

Published:Monday | February 15, 2021 | 11:44 AM
In this Friday, January 24, 2014 file photo, Nigerian Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala during a panel discussion "The Post-2015 Goals: Inspiring a New Generation to Act", the fifth annual Associated Press debate at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Okonjo-Iweala was appointed Monday, February 15, 2021, to head the World Trade Organization as it seeks to resolve disagreements over how it decides cases involving billions in sales and thousands of jobs. Okonjo-Iweala was appointed as director-general of the leading international trade body by representatives of the 164 member countries, according to a statement from the body. (AP Photo/Michel Euler, file)

FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — Nigeria’s Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala was appointed Monday to head the World Trade Organization, becoming the first woman and first African to take on the role amid disagreement over how the body decides cases involving billions in sales and thousands of jobs.

Okonjo-Iweala, 66, was named director-general by representatives of the 164 countries that make up the WTO, which deals with the rules of trade between nations.

She said in a statement that her first priority would be quickly addressing the economic and health consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic and to “implement the policy responses we need to get the global economy going again.”

“Our organisation faces a great many challenges but working together we can collectively make the WTO stronger, more agile and better adapted to the realities of today,” she said in a statement.

The appointment came after US President Joe Biden endorsed her candidacy, which had been blocked by former President Donald Trump.

Biden’s move was a step toward his aim of supporting more cooperative approaches to international problems after Trump’s “America first” approach that launched multiple trade disputes.

But unblocking the appointment is only the start in dealing with trade disputes launched by Trump, and in resolving US concerns about the WTO that date to the Obama administration.

The US had blocked the appointment of new judges to the WTO’s appellate body, essentially freezing its ability to resolve extended and complex trade disputes.

America has argued that the trade organisation is slow-moving and bureaucratic, ill-equipped to handle the problems posed by China’s state-dominated economy, and unduly restrictive on attempts by the US to impose sanctions on countries that unfairly subsidise their companies or export at unusually low prices.

Okonjo-Iweala is the first African official and the first woman to hold the job.

She has been Nigeria’s finance minister and, briefly, foreign minister, and has had a 25-year career at the World Bank as an advocate for economic growth and development in poorer countries.

She rose to the No. 2 position of managing director, where she oversaw $81 billion in development financing in Africa, South Asia, Europe, and Central Asia.

She made an unsuccessful bid for the top post in 2012 with the backing of African and other developing countries, challenging the traditional practice that the World Bank is always headed by an American.

She has said she is a believer in the power of trade to lift developing countries out of poverty.

Serving as special envoy for the African Union to mobilise financial support for the fight against COVID-19, she urged richer countries to support a two-year standstill on debt service for indebted countries and proposed easing economic sanctions on Sudan and Zimbabwe for health reasons.

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