Two African women, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and Amina Mohamed, have been announced as candidates for director-general of the World Trade Organization (WTO), a position that has never been held by either a woman or an African. Okonjo-Iweala, Nigeria’s first female finance minister and first female foreign affairs minister, had a 25-year career at the World Bank and served as its managing director of operations from 2007-2011. As finance minister, she led negotiations with the Paris Club of Creditors to erase $30 billion of Nigerian debt.
