JOB/GC/250  
 
16 February 2021  
(21-1289) Page: 1/4 
General Council   
 
 
APPOINTMENT OF THE NEXT DIRECTOR -GENERAL  
STATEMENT OF THE  DIRECTOR -GENERAL ELECT DR. NGOZI OKONJO -IWEALA  
TO THE SPECIAL SESSION OF THE WTO GENERAL COUNCIL  
15 February 2021  
1.1.  Let me start by thanking you, Ambassador Walker, and Ambassadors Castillo and Aspelund for 
your hard work, commitment, and dedication in steering this selection process to its conclusion.  
1.2.  I would like to pay tribute to the seven other highly qualified candidates for having come 
forward to participate in this  selection process. The energy and dedication they brought to the 
process enriched it and underscored our shared belief in the ability of the multilateral trading system 
to make a significant contribution to the expansion of the global economy for the bene fit of all 
Members.  
1.3.  I would like to express my profound gratitude to the WTO membership for electing me to lead 
this organization at this critical juncture. Special thanks to President Muhammadu Buhari and all my 
Nigerian compatriots for their support and prayers. I also want to recognise and thank ECOWAS and 
AU Heads of State, the ACP SG and membership for their early support of my candidacy. Thank you 
to other Members who supported my candidacy from start to finish of the selection process.  
1.4.  Without the re cent swift action by the Biden -Harris Administration to join the consensus of the 
membership on my candidacy, we would not be here today. I am grateful to the US for the prompt 
action and strong expression of support. Finally, my thanks to my family and fr iends too numerous 
to name here, for their strength and encouragement throughout this process. It has been a long and 
tough road full of uncertainty, but now it is the dawn of a new day, and the real work can begin.  
1.5.  Today, WTO Members are making history. F or the first time in the seventy -three years of GATT 
and WTO, you are selecting a woman and an African as Director -General. This is groundbreaking 
and positive. I am grateful for the trust you have in me, not just as a woman and an African, but 
also in my knowledge, experience, and, as some of you have said, possessing the courage and 
passion to work with you to undertake the wide ranging reforms the WTO needs to reposition itself 
for the future. At the WTO, the DG leads from behind working with the talente d secretariat staff to 
help Members achieve results. You can count on me to be proactive, to work hard, to be balanced, 
fair, professional, and objective, so as to continuously earn and sustain your trust. That way, 
together, we can restore and rebrand the  WTO as a key pillar of global economic governance, a force 
for a strong, transparent, and fair multilateral trading system, and an instrument for inclusive 
economic growth and sustainable development.  
1.6.  The preamble to the Marrakesh Agreement states that t he objectives of the WTO are to raise 
living standards, ensure full employment, increase incomes, expand the production of and trade in 
goods and services, and seek the optimal use of the world 's resources in accordance with the 
objective of sustainable de velopment. The preamble says it all! The WTO is about people! It 's about 
decent work! Let us place its overarching purpose front and centre as a driver for all we seek to 
accomplish for the multilateral trading system.  
1.7.  The WTO was already facing acute cha llenges before COVID -19. These challenges have now 
been amplified by the pandemic. In addition to the regretful mounting loss of life, the pandemic has 
wreaked havoc on the global economy, impacting supply chains and disrupting transport and travel. JOB/GC/250  
 
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  The cr isis has upended trade and economic activities leading to job losses and reduced incomes 
around the world. It has erased years of economic gains made by several developing countries and 
even decades of growth in some low income and least developed countrie s. Many have been pushed 
deeper into debt compromising their ability to meet the UN SDGs by 2030.  
1.8.  But there is hope on the horizon. The WTO expects world merchandise trade to rebound 
strongly this year. The IMF forecasts an 8% growth in global trade volum es in 2021 and a 6% growth 
in 2022 while it estimates global GDP to rebound from a  -4.4% growth rate in 2020 to 5.5% in 2021, 
with a projected 4.2% growth rate in 2022.  
1.9.  However, we cannot be complacent. For the global economy to return to sustained growth,  the 
global community will need to get a tight grip on the pandemic by intensifying cooperation to make 
equitable and affordable access to vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics a key plank of the 
recovery. With new COVID variants spreading rapidly all ov er, we must have a sense of urgency to 
getting control of the pandemic. The WTO can and must play a more forceful role in exercising its 
monitoring function and encouraging Members to minimise or remove export restrictions and 
prohibitions that hinder supp ly chains for medical goods and equipment. The International Trade 
Centre recently reported that up to 100 countries still maintain export restrictions and prohibitions.  
1.10.   WTO Members have a further responsibility to reject vaccine nationalism and protection ism. 
They should rather intensify cooperation on promising new vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics. 
There should be a "third way " to broaden access through facilitating technology transfer within the 
framework of multilateral rules, so as to encourage research and innovation while at the same time 
allowing licensing agreements that help scale up manufacturing of medical products. Some 
pharmaceutical companies are already ahead of the game because they are doing this. Astrazeneca 
has licensed production in several countries, and has recently declared that it is willing to look at 
more such arrangements. Johnson & Johnson seems willing to follow suit looking beyond contract 
manufacturing to licensing agreements. The Serum Institute of India, which is set t o manufacture 
up to 1 billion doses of vaccines, is a good example. Facilitating such arrangements will enable the 
WTO to support the WHO ACT -Accelerator, especially the COVAX facility to get affordable vaccines 
quickly to poor countries. Looking beyond th is pandemic, the WTO must be proactive in 
strengthening cooperation with other multilateral and bilateral partners, the private sector, and civil 
society to set a framework for dealing with problems of the global commons such as this pandemic. 
The private sector, civil society, and parliamentarians are important partners of the WTO with whom 
collaboration will be further nurtured going forward.  
1.11.   WTO Members agree that the organization needs reforms, but a lack of trust among members 
means that there is less  agreement on the nature of these reforms or their sequencing. To restore 
its credibility, the WTO must deliver early success and results. I have already expanded above on a 
key area where such results are possible, that is assistance in controlling the CO VID-19 pandemic 
through the nexus of trade and public health. At MC12, the success of which is a top priority for us 
all, we must reach agreement on some pressing issues and elaborate on work programmes for 
others. Apart from the issues related to the pand emic, I hope that we would have finalised the 
fisheries subsidies negotiations, leaving MC12 as the venue to conclude on modalities for 
implementation. I am acutely aware that the negotiations on fishery subsidies are difficult, but 
Members should exercise  the necessary flexibility for progress to be made on this important issue. 
A robust agreement would be a win -win for trade and sustainability. It will signal to the world that 
the WTO is back, that it is capable of concluding a multilateral agreement vita l for current and future 
generations. Members will need to overcome their differences and agree on prohibiting subsidies 
that contribute to illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing, and that facilitate overfishing and 
overcapacity. It is now time to id entify appropriate landing zones, taking into account the interest 
of all Members, and the need to fully fulfill SDG 14.6. The WTO cannot afford to stumble over this. 
The stakes are too high, the negotiations have been going on for far too long, and every effort must 
be made to conclude as soon as possible.  
1.12.   Reform of the dispute settlement system, which has been a central element in guaranteeing 
security and predictability of the multilateral trading system, is of utmost importance to the 
membership. Some Members have criticised the way it functions and demanded reforms. It will be 
important to agree on the nature of these reforms, flesh them out, and develop a work programme 
for implementation that can be advanced at MC12. I believe that the set of recomme ndations 
proposed by Ambassador Walker could provide Members with a platform upon which to build so as 
to restore confidence in the dispute settlement system. A strengthened and robust system is in the JOB/GC/250  
 
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  interest of all Members, and as such, every effort sho uld be made to improve it. We need a system 
that can garner the confidence of all, including small developing and least developed countries who 
have found it challenging to utilize.  
1.13.   The WTO rule book is outdated, and its rules lag behind those of several regional and bilateral 
trade agreements which are incorporating a lot of innovations. The rulebook must be updated to 
take account of 21st century realities such as e -commerce and the digital economy. The pandemic 
has heightened the importance and accelerated the role of e -commerce, which is expected to grow 
significantly in the coming years. E -commerce offers important opportunities for inclusivity of MSMEs 
and women in international trade, especially in developing countries. To make it possible fo r some 
developing and least developed countries to participate in the e -commerce negotiations, we must 
partner with governments and other organizations to bridge the digital divide. Success in the 
e-commerce negotiations could provide an impetus for revivi ng more broadly the negotiations on 
Trade in Services, a sector of increasing importance in the economy of most Members. Plurilateral 
initiatives have brought new energy in the Multilateral Trading System. Negotiating work on other 
joint statement initiati ves – domestic regulation and investment facilitation – has continued fairly 
intensively despite the pandemic. Participants need to pursue their efforts to build support and 
attract interest from a significant part of the WTO membership, including from dev eloping countries 
with a view to concluding at least the domestic regulation by MC12.  
1.14.   We should also work to ensure that the WTO best supports the green and circular economy 
and addresses more broadly the nexus between trade and climate change.  Trade and environmental 
protection can be mutually reinforcing, both contributing to sustainable development. It will be 
important for Members to reactivate and broaden the negotiations on environmental goods and 
services. This would help promote trust and encourage  Members to explore further ways in which 
trade can contribute positively to an improved climate. Care must, however, be taken to ensure that 
any disciplines are not used arbitrarily or as a disguised restriction on trade, and that they take into 
account t he need for developing countries to be assisted to transition to the use of greener and more 
environmentally friendly technologies.  
1.15.   The WTO 's work in new or innovative areas does not mean that traditional topics such as 
agriculture are forgotten. Agricult ure is particularly important for many developing and least 
developing countries. Improving market access for export products of interest to these countries is 
of paramount importance, as is dealing with trade distorting domestic support. The growing domes tic 
support entitlements of Members must be addressed to level the playing field, so as to provide 
opportunities for small scale farmers. In addition, it is possible for an early agreement on removal 
of export restrictions including favorable consideration  of the exemption of WFP humanitarian 
purchases. Likewise, we must also strengthen disciplines on industrial subsidies.  In that regard, it 
would be important to ensure that subsidies granted by Members to their state -owned enterprises 
in certain situations  do not distort the conditions of competition. The issue of Special and Differential 
Treatment (SDT) is a divisive one that undermines trust. However, the voluntary action of some 
developing country Members to not avail themselves of SDT in the future poin ts a way forward, so 
does the Trade Facilitation Agreement which allowed for taking into account each Member 's 
particular development status.  
1.16.   Let me now turn to procedural reforms. We need to look at how we can strengthen the working 
procedures of various  WTO bodies so that they can better serve the membership. Transparency is 
the lifeblood of the system and every effort should be made to assist Members to meet their 
notification and transparency obligations. The development and streamlining of online tool s, 
including the introduction of E -agendas is a step in the right direction. Some WTO rules and 
procedures also need to be revisited, including the procedures for appointing DGs. Regarding 
Ministerials, Article IV of the Marrakesh Agreement provides that "there shall be an MC composed of 
representatives of all Members which shall meet at least once every two years. " In today 's fast 
changing, fast paced, but uncertain world, it may be opportune for members to review the frequency 
of Ministerials to assess wh ether yearly meetings would allow Members to better appraise the health 
of the MTS, surface problems, and together advance timely solutions. Furthermore, Members take 
decisions on the basis of consensus, and rightly so, since Article IX:1 of the Marrakesh Agreement 
provides that "the WTO shall continue the practice of decision -making by consensus followed under 
the GATT " but Members must be vigilant that the quest for consensus does not create situations in 
which welfare enhancing innovations or approaches of benefit to the membership are frustrated.  
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  1.17.   The WTO Secretariat should be strengthened to enable it to provide cutting edge services to 
the membership in all relevant areas of WTO 's work, including implementation, monitoring, dispute 
settlement and nego tiations. An important change will be to move away from the current siloed way 
of working to a more team and task -based approach. The Secretariat has to be fit for purpose to 
take account of the changing dynamics of the global economy and priorities of Mem bers.  
1.18.   Let me conclude by saying that the challenges facing the WTO are numerous and tricky, but 
they are not insurmountable. There is hope. There is light at the end of the tunnel if we work together 
in a transparent manner that builds trust, builds bridg es, defuses political tensions, and encourages 
convergence.  
1.19.   The pandemic and its economic fallout have highlighted the interdependence of countries, the 
importance of multilateralism, and the need to strengthen collaboration to achieve fair and balanced 
trade agreements that provide opportunities for all WTO Members, particularly least developed 
countries and small island states. By working together, we can build trust, and we can achieve a 
stronger, more relevant, and inclusive trading system. I am passio nate about these goals. I am keen 
to support you to carry out the necessary reforms. I look forward to working closely with all of you 
in the coming months and years, to help build the WTO that we all want, a WTO that is about people, 
a WTO that is dynamic , robust, and that provides essential support to economic growth and 
sustainable development through trade. Once again ladies and gentlemen, I thank you for this 
opportunity.  
 
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