By The General Council of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), on Monday, agreed by consensus to select Nigeria’s former Minister of finance, Ngozi Okonjo Iweala, as its Director-General.
The 66-year-old economist, who is the first woman and the first African to lead the body, takes office on March, for a renewable term that expires on August 31, 2025.
Here are basic facts about the WTO DG that you should know:
– Born 13 June 1954, Okonjo-Iweala hails from Ogwashi-Ukwu, Delta State, Nigeria. Her father Professor Chukwuka Okonjo was the Obi (King) from the Obahai Royal Family of Ogwashi-Ukwu.
– After her education at Queen’s School, Enugu, St. Anne’s School, Molete, Ibadan, and the International School Ibadan, she arrived in the US in 1973 as a teenager to study at Harvard University, graduating magna cum laude with an AB in Economics in 1976. Okonjo-Iweala earned her PhD in regional economics and development from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1981. Her thesis titled Credit policy, rural financial markets, and Nigeria’s agricultural development.
– She had a 25-year career at the World Bank in Washington DC as a development economist, rising to the No. 2 position of Managing Director. As Managing Director, she had oversight responsibility for the World Bank’s $81 billion operational portfolio in Africa, South Asia, Europe and Central Asia.
– Okonjo-Iweala served two terms as Finance Minister of Nigeria (2003–2006, 2011–2015) under President Olusegun Obasanjo and President Goodluck Jonathan respectively. She was the first woman to become Finance Minister of Nigeria, and first woman to serve in that office twice.
– In 2012, she was a candidate for President of the World Bank, running against Dartmouth College President Jim Yong Kim; if elected, she would have become the organization’s first female president.
