The Director-General of the World Trade Organisation, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, may consider quitting her job at the organisation if no headway can be found on critical issues, trade officials at the organisation have suggested.
According to a report by Bloomberg, the DG’s decision may not be unconnected with growing frustrations with the workings of the organization.
With her intimidating credentials as a former developmental economist, high-ranking World Bank alumnus and the former director of vaccine alliance GAVI , Okonjo-Iweala had assumed duties seven months ago with a plan to score quick negotiating victories that she said would help rebuild the WTO.
But officials, who pleaded anonymity, said the former Nigeria’s Finance Minister, had grasped the frustrating reality of the WTO’s historical inertia, and was even floating the idea of resigning.
According to them, she had repeatedly told ambassadors and staff that she could easily walk away from the job and reminded them that she had not bought any furniture for her temporary home in Geneva.
Observers note that her early departure would add yet another layer of chaos to an organization suffering from an existential crisis that may lead governments to conclude that the WTO is an irredeemable forum for addressing their shared challenges.
Her predecessor, Roberto Azevedo, had previously cited the lack of progress at the WTO as the primary reason for resigning from the organisation a year before his tenure was scheduled to end.
But deep divisions and a lack of trust are not new for the WTO, which requires consensus agreement among all 164 members to finalize multilateral accords. If this is true of most global institutions, the political interest of the DG might just be the possible target of her early consideration to quit the liberal trade institution.
Some Geneva trade officials said Okonjo-Iweala’s consideration to quit the liberal trade regulator, might also have to do with some political interest in the 2023 presidential election in Nigeria.
Okonjo-Iweala, who denied the alleged presidential ambition, has neither commented about her threats to resign nor confirmed it.
She described such speculation as “utterly ridiculous and not true”.
“I just got here. I am enjoying what I’m doing. It is a very exciting job and I am trying to have some successes here”, she told Bloomberg News in a television interview.
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