The incoming first female Director General and first African to lead the World Trade Organisation (WTO),Ngozi Okonjo- Iweala says she’s feels excited and daunting at the same time but look forward to the challenge of her new office which will be confirmed on Monday, February 15
Okomjo- Iweala said there are a lot of challenges in front of the WTO, which needed deep reforms, rebranding and repositioning and said she felt very humble to be supported by all the members.
Okomjo-Iweala who was a guest on CNN Christine Amampour’s programme on Friday, when asked what sort of things required rebranding , said one of her top priorities would be how trade could play a vital role in solving the Covid-19 pandemic ” How can trade under the WTO play a stronger role in bringing solutions to the Covid-19 pandemic both on the health side and also on the economic side?
“For economic recovery,we need trade.And also in other to solve the public health problem we also need good trade rules that would allow access and equity for vaccines and therapeutics and diagnosis. So that’s a big issue for me. How do we get solutions to the present pandemic? There’s a lot of inequality, Women are marginalised, Small and Medium enterprise owners, how do we get rules that can help us deal with issues of inequality and focus on people.?.
Asked why women leaders did better than Men under the pandemic, Okomjo-Iweala said trust ,was one of the reasons why the women thrived
“There is an element of trust. If you look in transparent and fair,so when they come and say we really need to do this for the good of the nation even if it is difficult.
On Accountability of Leadership in Africa, the incoming WTO DG said she believed absolutely that accountability goes hand in hand with good governance.”, You cannot have good governance without accountability, that’s why things are changing. The new generation are much less tolerant.They want their leaders to be accountableThat is why you see many civil society movement, that is why young people go to the streets seeking a more democratic regime where they can have a voice. So I believe that If you want to be a leader,you have to be willing to be accountable to the people”
Okomjo-Iweala who co- authored a book,Women and Leadership with former Australian Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, expressed gratitude to the Biden-Harris administration for coming forward to give her the strong endorsement she needed to become the head of the WTO.
