WTO: Congrats, Okonjo-Iweala!

History was made on Monday, February 15, 2021, when Nigeria’s former Finance and
Foreign Affairs Minister, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, emerged as the Director-General (DG) of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) through a consensus agreement of the General Council of the Organisation. By this appointment, she became the first African and the first woman to clinch the position.
No doubt, Okonjo-Iweala’s appointment has elicited pride among Nigerians, Africans and women worldwide. She overcame stiff competition from an initial field of eight candidates, including another female, Yoo Myung-hee, the South Korean backed by the United States during ex-President Donald Trump’s administration. As she assumes office, her renewable term will expire on August 31, 2025.
The WTO is a global multilateral international organisation that promotes, monitors and adjudicates international trade. Along with regional and bilateral arrangements, the WTO shapes the overall expectations and practices of states regarding international trade. WTO was established in 1995 as a successor organisation to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trades (GATT), which was created in 1947 to facilitate freer trade on a multilateral basis.
Okonjo-Iweala deserves all the encomiums. We salute her courage to dare and also admire her success despite the strong opposition initially from powerful forces within the organisation. She is not new to exalted and tasking positions having served at the World Bank; chairperson of the board of Global Alliance for Vaccine and Immunisation (GAVI) and also served in the board of Standard Chartered Bank. She was also selected to join the board of Twitter in June 2018.
Her antecedent as a negotiator speaks volumes of her capacity to navigate the affairs of WTO and deliver on her mandate for member-countries. With her leadership of the WTO, Nigeria stands at the threshold of history not only for the woman who has become the first female and African director-general of the global organisation but a unique opportunity for the country to get back to its glorious days of non-oil exports such as cocoa, palm oil, groundnut, coal, etc.
Figures from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) show that revenue from the non-oil export has continued to dwindle and faced with huge uncertainty. In Q4, 2019, for instance, non-crude oil exports were reported at N1.1413 trillion or 23.9 per cent of total trade, and N1.1383 trillion, representing 27.9 per cent of total exports as of Q1, 2020. But by September 2020, non-crude exports had slumped to just N154.578 billion from N185.734 billion as of August of 2020.
An indication of her prowess was demonstrated when, as a finance minister during Olusegun Obasanjo’s presidency, she negotiated the cancellation of Nigeria’s foreign debts. She also led reforms that enhanced transparency of government accounts and strengthened institutions against corruption, including the implementation of the Government Integrated Financial Management System (GIFMS), the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System (IPPIS) and the Treasury Single Accounts (TSA).
But it is pertinent for us to point out to the new DG that there is much work to do at WTO. With challenges arising from the Covid-19 pandemic, US-China stand-off, among other matters that may arise, Okonjo-Iweala certainly has a lot on her plate. However, we believe that she can rise to the occasion. As part of her first steps forward, she is expected to swiftly demonstrate her capacity to unite countries whose relationships have been strained due to ‘bad blood’ engendered mainly during Trump’s government.
As the trade organisation plans to have its first ministerial conference under her regime, it is most likely she will be saddled with intense responsibility to prove, between now and December 2021, when the meeting will hold, that she is indeed the expected ‘messiah,’ especially as WTO has existed without a director-general since Roberto Azevedo left. She must replicate her unblemished traits in her new task.
She must move to ensure a successful and inclusive undertaking of multilateral negotiations which had been pending for 25 years and desist from being seen as a tool of the superpowers. Most importantly, Okonjo-Iweala must ensure that the interests of developing economies, especially those of Nigeria and Africa are taken along, mainly now that the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) has come on stream. Thirty-one members have signed up.
The sad reality is that international trade — transactions in goods and services between countries — is heavily skewed against developing countries. Getting out of the rut requires grit and creative policies. Okonjo-Iweala will need to tap from her diplomatic skills from her time at the World Bank, where she was once managing director, to curb the propensity of rich nations violating the rules while coercing Third World countries to abide.
We commend President Joe Biden of the United States of American (USA) for significantly withdrawing his country’s objection to the emergence of Okonjo-Iweala as DG of the trade organisation. Biden’s position indicates a shift and an important turnaround in the relations between Africa and the US. The Nigerian President, Muhammadu Buhari, is equally lauded for being in the vanguard of the campaign for the emergence of the former finance minister.
There is no doubt that Okonjo-Iweala will once again make Nigerians proud by re-enacting her track record of achievements at the WTO and thus open new opportunities and goodwill for more Nigerians to be given the privilege to serve on the global stage. We join world leaders to congratulate the colossus as she assumes duty and wish her a fruitful and memorable tenure.