Former Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala And 1 Other Advances To The Final Stage Of The World Trade Organisation (WTO)

Nigeria’s Former Minister of Finance, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala has advanced to the final stage for Director General race of the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

She made the last cut with South Korea’s Yoo Myung-hee, according to Bloomberg.

The implication is the 25-year-old body will have its first female Director-General.

Okonjo-Iweala has experience working at international governance bodies as a former managing director of the World Bank and as a Chairman at the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation.

Yoo is South Korea’s trade minister. During her 25-year career in government, she has helped expand her country’s trade network through bilateral accords with the U.S., China and the U.K.

The campaign to lead the WTO during the most turbulent period of its existence is playing out against the backdrop of the pandemic, a worldwide recession, the U.S.-China battle for trade supremacy and the American election. President Donald Trump has blasted the organization as the worst trade deal in U.S. history and pledged to overhaul it to better suit the country’s interests.

EU Trade Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis said the two are “very strong and very experienced” in a Bloomberg Television interview on Thursday in Brussels. EU member states, which unanimously backed both candidates in the previous two rounds, will now hold internal consultations to determine their ultimate preference.

“They’re both very well qualified — it’s going to be a fight,” said William Reinsch, a trade official in the Clinton administration and senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The top challenge will be “restoring the organization to full strength and viability, and restoring its reputation. “You need members to have confidence that the WTO is capable of solving problems. I think right now that confidence is eroded.”

Ahead of the formal decision, South Korean President Moon Jae-in spoke with Yoo by phone and congratulated her for making it to the final round. Moon told Yoo that she “fought well under difficult circumstances,” presidential spokesman Kang Min-seok told reporters in Seoul on Thursday.

Yoo told Bloomberg TV last month that she wanted the WTO to offer a meaningful platform for the U.S. and China to discuss their trade disputes. She vowed to play the role of mediator, if chosen to lead the organization and to work as a force for multilateralism.

WTO General Council Chairman David Walker plans to formally announce the results to the institution’s delegates today in Geneva.

United Kingdom’s Liam Fox, Kenya’s Amina Chawahir Mohamed Jibril, and Saudi Arabia’s Mohammad Maziad Al-Tuwaijri did not secure enough support in the second round of consultations.

The third and final phase of the consultation process will begin later in October and run until November 6, after which the WTO will endeavour to name a consensus winner of the race.