Economist eyes second WTO term

Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the first woman and first African to head the World Trade Organisation, will seek a second four-year term when her mandate expires next August, her spokesman Ismaila Dieng has said. Vanguard reports that Dieng added that she had taken into account ‘the overwhelming and broad-based support expressed by members’. Her decision to seek another term was officially communicated to WTO chair,  Norwegian Ambassador Petter Olberg. The WTO's African Group formally requested that she make herself available for a second term at that same meeting, and proposed that the process to re-nominate her should begin as soon as possible. Okonjo-Iweala, who took over in March 2021, has hinged her leadership on breathing new life into the rigid organisation. Fifty-eight of the 164 WTO member states have voiced support for a proposal from the African Group for Okonjo-Iweala to serve a second term. Okonjo-Iweala said ‘everything that I've accomplished, we've accomplished together’.