Through Me, African Women Would Have Open Doors –Okonjo-Iweala

Ahead of her resumption at the Geneva-based World Trade Organisation on March 1, 2021, Nigeria’s pride, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has said her performance in office between March this year and August 31, 2025, will open doors for Africans and women to lead international organisations.

The ex-World Bank director has received glowing global applause since her emergence as the new WTO boss this week.

With her emergence as WTO director general, Okonjo-Iweala breaks a 26-year record as the first African and first female boss of the global trade and dispute settlement organisation.

Known for many firsts including the first female finance minister in Nigeria and now the first female WTO DG, the 66-year-old Harvard graduate said she hopes her record-breaking wand will pave the way for other competent women to reach the top of the ladder of international organisations.

Speaking during an interview with Arise TV monitored by The PUNCH, the Nigerian development economist known for her African print Ankara wears and peculiar headgear usually tilted at a convenient angle, said she unabashedly “love being African and being Nigerian”.

She said, “I am proud for Africa, I am proud to be Nigerian and I am proud for women but the bottom line is capability to do the job and to deliver so that after me, there will be women, there will be other Africans, that is the whole point.

“Multilateral economic organisations need to have women. I have actually just published a book with the former Prime Minister of Australia about leadership talking about the fact that there is a dearth of women at the top even though a lot of progress has been made but it is too slow. This is an opportunity to have a woman leading a multilateral organisation.
Similarly, here for the WTO, this is a very important multilateral. In the 73 years of the GATT –General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade which turned into the WTO, there have not been any women.

“With this opening, I hope I will do a good job which I will very much focus on doing. Women will have the door open and Africans will have the door open and that is really an important thing.”

Credit: The Punch