Nigeria’s Okonjo-Iweala has been reappointed as the Director General of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). This is her second term in office. Her present stint will end on 31 August 2025. She was first elected as the WTO DG on February 15, 2021.
Okonjo-Iweala, the first woman and the first African to head the WTO was the only candidate in the race and had been all but assured a second term. The organisation’s 166 members “today agreed to give incumbent Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala a second term as director-general,” the WTO said in a statement.
The 70-year-old Nigerian’s reappointment was approved by consensus during a special meeting of the organisation’s General Council, held behind closed doors, the WTO said. Her current term ends in August 2025, and the appointment process for the next mandate had initially been scheduled to take months.
But with Okonjo-Iweala the only candidate, African countries called for the process to be speeded up, officially to facilitate preparations for the WTO’s next big ministerial conference, set to be held in Cameroon in 2026.
Since taking the WTO reins, Okonjo-Iweala has tried to breathe new life into the fragile organisation, pushing for a fresh focus on areas like climate change and health.
