15/03/2023
WOMAN CRUSH WEDNESDAY (NGOZI OKONJO-IWEALA)
Wednesdays are dedicated to every amazing woman in the world. Today, we are celebrating one of the world's most decorated economists. She is the Director General of the World Trade Organization and she served as Nigeria’s Finance minister for two terms. She is known globally for her brilliance, relevance, integrity, passion, inexplicable dedication to building communities, and yes, her scarf’s style which models African fashion.
Our Woman Crush Wednesday is none other than Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala (CFR, GCON) was born on 13th June 1958 in Ogwashi-Ukwu, Delta state, Nigeria. She attended Queen’s School, Enugu, St. Anne’s School, Molete, Ibadan, Oyo state, and International School Ibadan, Oyo state.
Her love for education and desire to learn led her to the United States of America where she studied at Harvard University where she graduated magna cm laude. After Harvard, she headed to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where she earned a master’s degree and PhD in city planning (1978) and regional development (1981) respectively.
Dr. Okonjo-Iweala has massively contributed to the development of several African communities and to the financial growth of multinational organizations.
She has held numerous positions worldwide, the most recent being the Director General of the World Trade Organization (WTO) a position she still holds since 15th of February 2021.
She served two terms as Nigeria’s finance minister first under President Olusegun Obasanjo GCFR from 2003 to 2006 then, she served under President Goodluck Jonathan from 2011 to 2015. She also served as the Minister of Foreign Affairs for three months, June to August 2006.
Her tenure as Nigeria’s finance minister was recognized as a success within and outside the country, in 2005, Euromoney singled out Okonjo-Iweala as the Global Finance Minister of the Year. She was and is the only woman to serve two terms as Nigeria’s Finance Minister.
During Dr. Okonjo-Iweala second term as Nigeria’s Finance Minister, she led reform which enhanced the transparency of the Nigerian government accounts, this fortified Nigerian institutions against corruption and her innovations are effective till date. Three key implementations of the reform are the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Management System (IPPMS) which wiped out 62,893 ghost workers and saved Nigeria $1.25 billion, the Treasury System Accounts (TSA), and the Government Integrated Financial Management System (GIFMS).
Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala empowered thousands of women and youth through the Growing Girls and Women in Nigeria Programme (GWIN), Youth Enterprise with Innovation Programme (YouWIN) which empowers youths and has created hundreds of jobs, and a gender-responsive budgeting system.
While working for the nation's growth, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala encountered some challenges, two of these were when she received death threats and also endured a testing period when her mother was kidnapped during her attempt to sanitize the fuel subsidy payments to fuel marketers in 2012.
She didn't let this period pull her down, she held her heads high, weather the storm, and kept her integrity and commitment to building the nation.
Globally, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala was the Managing Director for Operations of World Bank from 2007 to 2011 this position was after an amazing 25-year career as a development economist.
She is a Commissioner Emeritus and Co-Chair of the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate.
She is the first woman and first African to hold the position of the Director-General of the World Trade Organization, she was a candidate for the President of the World Bank in 2012, she co-chaired the Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation. She served IMF as a member of the International Monetary and Finance Committee from 2003-2006 and 2011 to 2015. She also played a humongous role in the United Nations’ Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel on the Post-2015 Development Agenda from 2012 to 2013.
She formerly sat on the Twitter Board of Directors before stepping down in February 2021 in relation to her appointment at WTO.
She sits on the board of Standard Chartered Bank, African Risk Capacity (ARC), Global Alliance for Vaccine and Immunization (GAVI), Mandela Institute of Developmental Studies (MINDS), Rockefeller Foundation, Results for Development (R4D), Earthshot Prize, One Campaign, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security, and Danone.
Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is married to Ikemba Iweala, a neurosurgeon and their marriage is endowed with four children one of whom is the amazing author, Uzondinma Iweala.
