Former Finance Minister, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala has resumed her new position as the Director-General of the World Trade Organisation, WTO.
Her appointment was ratified on February 15, endorsed by the United States and approved by the World Trade Organization.
“WTO members have just agreed to appoint Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala as the next Director-General,” the global trade body said in a statement.
But her appointment was almost scuppered by the former American president Donald Trump, whose administration preferred South Korea’s trade minister Yoo Myung-hee for the job.
Trump administration’s insistence on Minister Yoo, was despite Okonjo-Iweala’s endorsement by the key ambassadors of the WTO last October.
WTO disclosed her office resumption on his verified Twitter handle on Monday.
The trade organization said Okonjo-Iweala was the first woman and African to take up the job.
“Welcome to Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala; @NOIweala on her first day as WTO Director-General!
“She makes history as the first woman and first African to take up this post,” WTO tweeted.
She is hitting the ground running, with her first day on the job in Geneva coinciding with the annual meeting of WTO’s General Counsel.
Delegates are expected to agree that the organisation’s next ministerial conference, which had been scheduled for last year but was postponed due to the pandemic, will be held in Geneva in December.
The question remains whether the new WTO chief, considered a strong-willed trailblazer, will be able to mould the organisation in her image before then.
While some observers voice hope that Okonjo-Iweala will inject much-needed energy, others stress she has little wiggle room to make a dramatic change, given that WTO decisions are made by member states — and only when they can reach consensus.
One of her first tasks will be to nominate four new deputy directors to help recharge the organisation’s negotiating mechanisms.
Okonjo-Iweala has said that one of her main objectives is to push long-blocked trade talks on fishery subsidies across the finish line in time for the ministerial conference, but with negotiations dragging on, that could be a tough sell.
Amid a global economic crisis triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic, she has plenty of other challenges on her plate.