The World Trade Organization (WTO) is all set to have its first female leader after Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala of Nigeria and Yoo Myung-hee of South Korea made it through Thursday to the final run-off, a spokesman of WTO announced.
Nigeria’s Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and South Korea’s Yoo Myung-hee will face competition form Liam Fox of Britain, Kenya’s Amina Mohamed and Mohammad al-Tuwaijri from Saudi Arabia in the second round for becoming the next Director-General of the WTO.
Keith Rockwell, WTO spokesman at the Headquarters of Global Trade Body in Geneva said, “Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala of Nigeria and Korean minister Yoo Myung-hee will advance to the third and final stage of consultations”. Keith said that the winner will be announced before 7 November and “The third stage will run from October 19 to October 27”.
The initial pool of eight candidates for replacing Roberto Azevedo, a Brazilian career diplomat who stepped down as WTO Chief in August a year ahead of the schedule, which was narrowed down to five from eight candidates in the first round last month. Rather than the straightforward elections, the WTO eliminates candidates through the process of consensus and preferences. Earlier this week, When the members of EU states threw the weight of Okonjo-Iweala and Yoo Myung-hee behind them, both of them had received a boost.
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, 66, served as Nigeria’s First Female Finance and Foreign Minister and has a 25-year career as a development economist at the World Bank. Ngozi is also Twitter’s board of directors and a special envoy for the World Health Organization’s for the fight against Covid-19 pandemic. Currently, 53, Yoo Myung-hee is serving as South Korea’s First Female Trade Minister and has a career in trade diplomacy and Foreign affairs.