BREAKING! Okonjo-Iweala Breaks The Glass Ceiling, Emerges First Female DG of WTO

Nigeria’s former finance minister and a former managing director of the World Bank, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala has emerged as the first female Director-General of the World Trade Organization(WTO), shattering the glass ceiling.

Okonjo-Iweala broke the glass ceiling, emerging as the first African and the first female to attain the position of DG of WTO by springing up as the finalist after eliminating South Korea’s current trade Minister, Yoo Myung-hee in a fierce battle for the coveted job on Monday night.

The New Diplomat Europe’s outpost office gathered that with the EU nations and the United States moving in opposite direction, a move that triggered a deadlock between the two powerful geo-political allies for the first time in many years, it was the decisive and quiet support of China that finally tipped the scales in Okonjo-Iweala’s favour.First Female DG of WTO, nigeria former finance minister

The WTO’s Ambassador Walker’s led General Council, the overall organ responsible for picking the organization’s next DG, would officially announce the choice of Nigeria’s former Finance Minister, Dr Okonjo-Iweala today, October 27.

Diplomatic sources confided in The New Diplomat that an official announcement to this effect would be formally made today by New Zealand’s Ambassador Walker’s led WTO General Council.

The race for the coveted job of DG of WTO has been fierce with Nigeria’s Okonjo-Iweala and South Korea’s serving Trade Minister, Yoo Myung-hee, running neck-and-neck in the intense jostle and game of global diplomatic intrigues.

Indications had emerged that influential global trading countries including the United States(US), the European Union(EU) nations, China, Japan and the BRICS countries were strongly divided on who should be the candidate to lead the WTO.

High-level sources confided in The New Diplomat’s Europe’s outpost operations that it “took serious negotiations and prolonged talks to get China to go along with Nigeria with its decision to support Okonjo-Iweala.” China controls about 12.4% of the global trade.

The influence of the United States on global trade is reportedly huge as well given that it single-handedly controls about 12% of global trade just as China holds about 12.4% of the global trade statistics.

Diplomatic sources hinted that East Asia countries with the exception of China went along with Myung-hee in preference. These include Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Macay, Mongolia and South Korea. Japan, a US ally is another strong international player in global trade with an estimated $705.7 billion worth of goods globally in 2020.

However, on Okonjo-Iweala’s side apart from the EU and 55 AU nations were 24 solid ACP countries that reportedly expressed preference for her candidacy. The CP countries in this regard include Bahamas, Cuba, Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Dominica Republic, Dominica, Greneda, Fiji, Cook Islands, Solomon Islands, Timor-Lester, Parpua New Guinea, etc.

A combination of this preponderance form about 79 block countries that solidly stood behind Nigeria’s Okonjo-Iweala. However, it was the quiet and deft diplomacy of China that sealed the deal in Okonjo-Iweala’s favour.

A top diplomat in Geneva told The New Diplomat in confidence: “China quietly changed the game. They said nothing openly but silently they, deftly China voted in Nigeria’s favour.”

Okonjo-Iweala, 66, served as Nigeria’s first female finance and later foreign minister, and has a 25-year career behind her as a development economist and international finance expert at the World Bank, eventually becoming its number two. She is also on Twitter’s board of directors and is a special envoy for the World Health Organization’s COVID-19 fight.

Thus, Okonjo-Iweala has successfully edged out South Korea’s Myung-hee. Yoo Myung-hee 53, is the serving South Korea’s trade minister, following a long career in trade, diplomacy, law and foreign affairs. She had previously served as South Korea’s foreign Affairs minister, among others. A lawyer and diplomat, Myung-hee holds degrees in Law, Public Policy and was called to the New York Bar.

One major implication of this is that China has somewhat stamped its feet on the global diplomatic and economic dynamics as an indispensable power, having deftly supported Okonjo-Iweala to victory as the US and EU purportedly cancelled themselves in a diplomatic deadlock.

Already, China is the biggest economy in the world in terms of P3, Purchasing Power Parity. Thus, the consequence of this on the global scale, according to diplomats, is quite telling.

Journalreporters.com

Congratulations madam. Please try and do your best so that you'll not block the way of other Nigerians in future.

Congrats mama. 9ja to the world.

Why the fake news? She hasn't been announced as the winner! Why are so many threads saying she has been announced?

Let me first confirm if this is real or fake

Any source?

Ok

Congratulations to you. Well deserved!

The real Slay queen.

Op verify your news well before posting o

Congrats mummy

madam congratulation

Ishilove:
The real Slay queen.

Op verify your news well before posting o

Yea you can take my post to the bank any day

"The WTO’s Ambassador Walker’s led General Council, the overall organ responsible for picking the organization’s next DG, would officially announce the choice of Nigeria’s former Finance Minister, Dr Okonjo-Iweala ......""

The 27 European Union member states have backed Nigeria’s former finance minister, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, in her bid to become the first African and first female director-general of the World Trade Organisation.

The EU member states are France, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, and Sweden.

The latest support for Okonjo-Iweala’s candidacy brings the number of countries officially endorsing her to 106 out of the 164 states that comprise the WTO.

The 55-member African Union had earlier officially supported the former World Bank director over her sole remaining opponent, Yoo Myung-hee of South Korea.

Congrats to her

robosky02:




Yea you can take my post to the bank any day

"The WTO’s Ambassador Walker’s led General Council, the overall organ responsible for picking the organization’s next DG, would officially announce the choice of Nigeria’s former Finance Minister, Dr Okonjo-Iweala ......""

Okay. Let the next day reach first

It would have been a Biafran emerged wto boss.Biafra will definitely make waves and dwarfs Nigeria when it's realised.

Ao does this bring down the price of rice now

IPOB!

k

bcomputer101:
FAKE NEWS

E PAIN AM

GUYS ARE YOU SURE THAT NGENEUKWUENU AKA CLEVERLY AKA CILICMARIN WILL NOT COMMIT SUICIDE ON SIGHTING THIS NEWS

Break the glass/ceiling

US holds up Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala appointment as WTO Director-General


Nigeria's candidate for General Director of the World Trade Organization Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala attends the General Council meeting in Geneva
Nigeria's candidate for General Director of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala attends the General Council meeting during the WTO Director General election process, as the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) continues, in Geneva, Switzerland July 15, 2020. WTO/Jay Louvion/Handout via REUTERS
Nigeria's Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala was slated to be the new Director-General of the World Trade Organization. She will be the first woman, and the first African, to lead the institution. But there was an unexpected glitch in the process.

Update from our earlier post: In a last ditch move, the United States representative at World Trade Organization took to the floor to insist that South Korea’s candidate remained a contender, and that Washington will not recognise Okonjo-Iweala as the consensus candidate for appointment as director-general.

In response to this, the General Counsel has postponed its announcement of the new Director-General until a further meeting, which is scheduled for 9 November; after the US presidential elections.

A panel at the WTO recommended her today for the position.

Today’s announcement that Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is to be the new director-general of the World Trade Organization would have been a tremendous boost for Africa and lines her up for one of the toughest jobs in the international system.

Our sources in Geneva say that she had won the support from the vast majority of member states, including the EU, Japan and China, but not the United States.

She will have to lead the charge for a revival of multilateralism, in the negotiating chambers of the WTO and for a better deal for developing economies, as well as for the practical matter of how reforming trade and patent rules can allow the distribution of life saving vaccines and therapeutics as the coronavirus pandemic rips across the world on its second wave.

READ MORE Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala: “If we didn’t have the WTO we would have to invent it.”

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As the first woman and African to head the trade body, Okonjo-Iweala has shattered a couple of ceilings at the same time. She also has a chance to put Africa’s plans to build the world’s biggest free trade area on the top table, pointing to the productive and market opportunities on the continent.

At the same time, she has won the race for the job from hell. That much was clear when her predecessor – Brazil’s Robert Azevêdo – quit the post early after years of frustration at the logjams in negotiation on reforming the WTO.

Those negotiations have been made harder still by the eruption of a trade war between the US and China alongside sporadic outbreaks of economic nationalism across the globe.

READ MORE WTO: Who is backing Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala’s bid?

Surely this must be the worst time to take over an organisation dedicated multilateral trade agreements, The Africa Report asked Okonjo-Iweala during the campaign. “Multi-lateralism has never been needed more than now,” she said. “The COVID-19 pandemic has shown that this is the time we need to act in solidarity to have multilateral solutions, because there are simply some things in the world that bilateral or even sub-regional solutions cannot solve.”

On the distribution of vaccines and drugs to fight the pandemic, Okonjo-Iweala said she would prioritise open access: “Being involved in COVID-19 and vaccines now as the chair of GAVI and an envoy on the Act accelerator, I’m seeing it from the front lines and we want to make sure that we don’t have a situation where access to vaccines for other countries where they are not made is blocked … The world is so interconnected now that no one is safe until everyone is safe, and no country is safe until all countries are safe.”


This, she acknowledged, will take tough negotiations with the drugs companies and with national governments but she insisted it would take top priority: “This is an area where we really need to think through the trade regime and the rules that will govern these kinds of products, whilst respecting country’s desires to do a minimum for their security.”

Ishilove
https://www.theafricareport.com/48021/ngozi-okonjo-iweala-is-new-wto-director-general-first-african-first-woman-in-post/