Wow!
Female – Black – African: Stereotypes which feed prejudice. Though burdened with all three, the admirable Nigeria-born Nogzi Okonjo-Iweala is becoming the head of WTO – the World Trade Organisation. Congratulations are due! The 66 year old economist will be the first woman and the first African to be confirmed in this post, which will probably happen once the USA has announced its WTO representative. She has all the right qualifications: a graduate of Harvard and MIT, she served twice as Nigeria’s Finance Minister – known as a valiant fighter against corruption and has worked for 25 at the World Bank. Incidentally she is a member of Twitter’s executive. Until December 2020 she was chair of GAVI, the international vaccine alliance which focuses on the distribution of these to developing countries.
Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala had been accepted by 163 nations with one exception: Ex-President Trump. He supported the South Korean Trade Minister Yoo Myung-hee, who withdrew her candidature.
The race was significant: it took place between two women from developing countries. Moreover within the male domain of trade. At the time when the head of WTO withdrew in August 2020, a trade war was going on between US and China, with Trump also imposing tariffs on other countries, Canada, the EU, Mexico. A new broom with a new approach is shortly expected to sweep through WTO premises in Geneva.
With only 29% African women are under-represented in leading decision-making roles compared with 41% of counterparts in South and Central Asia. That highlights the importance of Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala’s appointment.
Incidentally: women are in the top position of only 21 countries, while 199 have never had a female at its head. Despite this, four women had been nominated for the 2020 UN Global Citizen Prize for World leaders. The prize finally went to Ursula von der Leyen for her Covid-19 efforts. The prize was also awarded to women in 2018 and 2019. Surely this is no coincidence. Women contribute an element to roles in public life, which men seem to lack.
According to the UN, women are “underrepresented at all levels of decision-making worldwide, and achieving gender parity in political life is far off.” Goal No.5 of the UN Global Goals for 2030 to eradicate poverty, is gender equality. The Covid-19 epidemic has shown once more that women are disadvantaged with regard to job quality and income. The unequal sharing of household duties between the sexes continues to handicap women in pursuing careers.
The question is thus open, how many women will be able to emulate Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala’s example within nine years?