WTO members have agreed to give incumbent Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala a second term as Director-General of the WTO. The decision on giving her a second four-year term, to start on September 1 2025, was approved at a special General Council meeting on Friday.   

“I hope we can work on new agreements or Ministerial decisions that would support industrialisation, increased value addition and supply chain decentralisation to developing members so that they can accelerate growth and create the jobs needed to keep their young people gainfully employed,” the DG said in a statement, outlining her plans for her next term. 

To make the next WTO Ministerial Conference, MC14, a success, the DG said that on substance sending multiple negotiating issues to Ministers to resolve should be avoided. “We saw that this did not work well at MC13. Let us resolve to complete work in Geneva on virtually all outstanding negotiating files so Ministers can just endorse the results and focus on two key issues: Agriculture and Dispute Settlement System reform.,” she proposed

The DG hoped to support members to relook at subsidies and countervailing measures agreements put in place in 1995 when the world, including WTO membership, was very different and climate change was not yet an issue. “I hope we can reform it to deal with level playing field issues, whilst acknowledging the imperatives of new types of subsidies,” she said.

Okonjo-Iweala took office as Director-General in March 2021 and is the first African and the first woman to serve as head of the organisation.

On the WTO dispute settlement mechanism, which has not been functioning fully for long with the US not allowing the appointment of judges for the Appellate Body, the DG said that it was the  biggest, most challenging, and most publicised gap at the WTO. “The image of dysfunction is now so ingrained in the public psyche that it is difficult to convince anyone that the system actually functions at the panel level. I have spent a long time trying to persuade audiences of this,” she said.

Regarding an appeal review, there has actually been some creativity in resolving disputes through dialogue, the Multi-Party Interim Appeal Arbitration Arrangement (MPIA), diplomacy and other means, the DG added.

On the reform of the dispute settlement system, Okonjo-Iweala assured members that she was coordinating closely with the General Council chair to make sure work on this reform continued and there were no gaps or lapses. “Over the next fifteen months, I expect to see us complete work on these reforms, ready for delivery to Ministers at MC14,” she said.

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