· Kenya’s Sports Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohamed has submitted her nomination for the post of Director-General of the World Trade Organisation (WTO).
· This brings the total number of candidates to six including two from Africa.
Kenya’s Sports Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohamed has submitted her nomination for the post of Director-General of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). Ms Mohamed’s candidature was submitted by the Kenyan government on July 7. This brings the total number of candidates to six including two from Africa. The other five contestants include former Nigerian Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Egyptian commercial law academic Abdel-Hamid Mamdouh, Jesús Seade Kuri of Mexico, Moldova’s Tudor Ulianovschi and Yoo Myung-hee of South Korea.
The current Director General Robert Azevêdo from Brazil will be stepping down later this year. The WTO announced that the six candidates will now meet with the General Council to pitch for the position. The decision about the final nomination will be announced on August 31. Ms Mohamed, Kenya’s former Foreign minister, had contested against Mr Azevedo in 2013 but lost out on a decision made by consensus among member states.
Ms Mohamed has already served on the WTO’s key decision making organs.In 2005, she was Chairperson of the General Council, the highest-level decision making organ of the WTO. She contributed in steering the WTO to adopt the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (Trips), an international pact that helps poorer nations use technology from richer countries for making products like generic drugs, without harming their intellectual property owners. She also served as head of the Dispute Settlement Body and Trade Policy Review Body.
