Ex-IMF boss Lagarde says Okonjo-Iweala will shake the WTO

Jude Egbas 07:56 - 09 February 2021

Former Nigerian Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, left, said to have been one potential US nominee for World Bank president, seen here with IMF chief Christine Lagarde

Lagarde believes that Okonjo-Iweala is the one person that can be trusted to fix a disorganised, rudderless WTO.

European Central Bank President and former Chair and Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Christine Lagarde, says the incoming boss of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), Nigeria's Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, is the one person that can be trusted to bring badly needed reforms to the multilateral trade body.

Okonjo-Iweala is now only an affirmation away from being named Director General of the WTO after her only opponent in the race withdrew; and after the United States endorsed her candidacy.

A troubled WTO

The organisation Okonjo-Iweala will soon head "has struggled to produce meaningful multilateral agreements, its trade-monitoring function consistently underperforms and former U.S. President Donald Trump neutralized the WTO appellate body in late 2019," Bloomberg writes.

With a budget totaling $220 million in 2020 and a staff of more than 600, the WTO has become a toothless bureaucracy during the most disruptive period for international commerce in generations.

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is now only an affirmation away from being named WTO boss (AFP)

Okonjo-Iweala would have her plate and hands full from Day 1 and Lagarde says she has the capacity to "rock the place" and steady the ship.

“She is this wonderful, soft, very gentle woman with an authentic approach to problems but, boy, under that soft glove there is a hard hand and a strong will behind it,” Lagarde says in an interview. “She is going to rock the place.”

Christine Lagarde said the ECB would create a specialist team to focus on climate change

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Former Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard says Okonjo-Iweala "will bring a different kind of global perspective to the WTO than anyone before her. She has a global view of challenges and problems and is insightful about solutions.”

Been there, done that

66-year-old Okonjo-Iweala graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University in 1976 and earned her doctorate in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1981.

After moving to Washington, she quickly rose through the ranks at the World Bank.

Okonjo-Iweala leaves World Bank headquarters in Washington in 2012.(Photographer: T.J. Kirkpatrick/Bloomberg)

In 2013, she was named Managing Director of the World Bank, the organisation’s highest unelected position.

She served as Minister of Finance in Nigeria from 2003 to 2006 and from 2011 to 2015 under Presidents Olusegun Obasanjo and Goodluck Jonathan respectively.

The WTO intends to hold a meeting in the coming days where members will consider a final decision on Okonjo-Iweala’s candidacy.

If none of the WTO’s 164 members oppose her, she will be appointed for a four-year term, with a possible four-year extension in 2025, per Bloomberg.

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala