The World Trade Organization looks set to appoint Nigeria’s Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala as its first female and first African leader next week.
The global trade body announced Tuesday that it would hold a special meeting of its General Council on February 15 “to consider the appointment of the next WTO director-general”.
The announcement comes after US President Joe Biden’s administration last week offered its “strong support” to Okonjo-Iweala, marking yet another sharp split from his predecessor Donald Trump, who had blocked her nomination for months.
Key WTO ambassadors tapped Okonjo-Iweala back in October as the best pick to lead the organisation but Trump’s administration maintained its opposition to her appointment and said it backed her opponent, South Korea’s trade minister Yoo Myung-hee, instead.
Twice Nigeria’s finance minister and its first woman foreign minister, 66-year-old Okonjo-Iweala is seen as a trailblazer in her country.
A development economist by training with degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard, she also spent a quarter of a century at the World Bank, rising to be managing director and running for the top role in 2012.