Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala – “If we didn’t have the WTO we would have to invent it.”

Nigeria’s redoubtable former minister of finance, a former managing director at the World Bank, is pushing for the top job at the World Trade Organisation. She promises proactive leadership for a body that has lost its way in recent years.

In front of the lights and cameras of the formal candidate presentation and press conference on 15 July at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in Geneva, Okonjo-Iweala delivered a robust defence of the merits of the multi-lateral trading system.

Asked why Africa did not rally behind a single candidate, she denied that there is a sense of continental division: “I am proud of my continent for providing three good candidates, and it is up to the council to choose”.

She does believe however that the WTO has a role to play in helping countries, often in the South, often in Africa, who have failed to benefit from the global trading system as it is structured today. Okonjo-Iweala said were she to be elected she would push for instruments such as aid for trade, or other mechanisms to help level the playing field.

One policy proposal African countries might appreciate from Okonjo-Iweala – especially given fresh reports of Chinese fishing trawlers plundering West African fish stocks – is the attempt to take swift action at the WTO over what Okonjo-Iweala calls ‘bad subsidies that encourage overfishing’.