Former UK prime minister Gordon Brown backs Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala's quest to become WTO boss

FORMER British prime minister Gordon Brown has thrown his weight behind Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala's bid to become the next director-general of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) saying she has a track record of delivery.

Dr Okonjo-Iweala, 65, is one of seven candidates seeking to be named as the next WTO boss in September, who have all recently made their case before the general assembly. Rather than an election, the WTO selection procedure relies on finding consensus, with candidates gradually being eliminated in turn.

Facing Dr Okonjo-Iweala is South Korea’s trade minister Yoo Myung-Hee, 53, who is a negotiator, strategist and international trade expert and the UK's former international trade and defence secretary Dr Liam Fox. Also in the race are Mexican economist Jesús Seade Kuri, Kenya’s Amina Mohamed, Egyptian diplomat Hamid Mamdouh and former Moldovan foreign minister Tudor Ulianovschi.

With September fast approaching, Mr Brown has endorsed Dr Okonjo-Iweala, arguing that she has a record of delivering results in the toughest of jobs. He claimed that Dr Okonjo-Iweala, would make an outstanding success of running the Swiss-based regulator, which is facing an existential crisis while searching for its next director-general and grappling with the global economic disruption caused by Covid-19.

Claiming Dr Okonjo-Iweala is respected across the whole of the world, Mr Brown backed her ahead of the UK's Liam Fox, the former Conservative trade secretary. Since the WTO was created in 1995, three of its directors-general have come from Europe, while one each came from Oceania, Asia and South America.

So far, Africa is yet to produce a WTO boss but there is no guarantee the continent will as the organisation is not like the UN, which is run on a rotational principle. However, bookmakers have the three African candidates down as the frontrunners in the contest.