Two African women who have pledged green reforms are the front-runners to become the World Trade Organization’s next director-general in November.
Either Kenya’s Amina Mohamed or Nigeria’s Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala could become the organisation’s first female and first African leader.
According to analysts from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, many nations, particularly in Africa and the EU, are expected to support both candidates.
Both women used their written candidate statements to call for environmental reform of the WTO’s trade rules, while their three opponents from Korea, the UK and Saudi Arabia, have said little about climate change.
Mohamed, who has held cabinet roles including foreign affairs in the Kenyan government since 2013, said the economic recovery must “take account” of issues like climate change. The WTO should be reformed to “support our shared environmental objectives” and encourage diffusion of clean technologies, she said.
Okonjo-Iweala, former finance minister for Nigeria, said that “the WTO appears paralysed at a time when its rule book would greatly benefit from an update to 21st century issues such as ecommerce and the digital economy, the green and circular economies”. She said she wants to reach “optimal complementarity between trade and the environment”. Read more…
