Bloomberg gives Amina Mohamed’s pitch for WTO job a boost

The initial pitch by Sports CS Amina Mohamed for the post of director-general of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) has received an enthusiastic review by Bloomberg, earning her an early publicity boost.

In a Monday bulletin of Supply Lines, Bloomberg said Ms Mohamed’s pitch last Thursday “checked many of the boxes” delegates at the WTO want in a new director-general.

“She’s a former WTO ambassador, an ex-Trade minister and a previous chair of a WTO ministerial conference,” Bloomberg wrote, referring to her previous role as Foreign Affairs and International Trade CS, during which she chaired the WTO ministerial conference in Nairobi in December 2015.

“She’s fluent in the WTO’s procedures and legal texts and she personally helped negotiate the WTO’s most recent package of multilateral agreements. She also hails from sub-Saharan Africa’s third-largest economy, from a continent that’s pursuing more free trade with the world,” Bloomberg added.

KEY DECISION-MAKING BODIES

Ms Mohamed, a former ambassador to the WTO, also chaired all of the organisation’s key decision-making bodies.

Bloomberg said that sort of experience gave her a chance to contest from the “inside track”. But it also means she has to lobby member states for political victory.

The Kenyan contender is fighting it out with seven other candidates for the post of director-general of the global trade agency that has 164 members and is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland.

Other candidates are Nigeria’s Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and Abdel-Hamid Mamdou of Egypt, former UK Trade Secretary Liam Fox, Mr Jesús Seade Kuri of Mexico, Moldova’s Tudor Ulianovschi, Saudi Arabia’s former Economy Minister Mohammad Mazia al-Tualjri and Ms Yoo Myung-hee, the current Trade Minister of South Korea.

All the candidates intimated that the WTO is run on archaic practices that no longer attract most countries. In fact, they said its weaknesses have seen some countries try to undermine it.

BODY NEEDS TO MODERNISE

In an initial session for submissions known as “making themselves known to members”, all the contenders said the body needs to modernise.

Appearing before the General Council on July 16, Ms Mohamed told the group of envoys she would help with the “reform, recovery and renewal” of the global body charged with providing trade rules.

“Reform is all the more urgent because an effective WTO is needed to help create the conditions for a sustainable recovery from the economic fallout of the Covid-19 pandemic,” she said in Geneva.

“The members themselves have been talking about reforming the organisation. What they don’t agree on is what reforms to be undertaken,” she later said during a virtual press conference on Thursday evening.

But whoever becomes the director-general will simply implement what member states agree on.

AGREE ON REFORMS

“The membership needs to agree on what reforms need to take place and what priorities to attach to those reforms,” she added, saying she would help provide a platform for those discussions.

Back home, Ms Mohamed enjoys the support of President Uhuru Kenyatta, ODM Leader Raila Odinga and a group of women leaders, including top civil servants.

Traditionally, the DG is selected by consensus. The candidates have until September 7 to make their pitches to member states until September 7.

Thereafter, the Chair of the General Council, [David Walker of New Zealand] and Chair of the Dispute Settlement Body (Dacio Castillo of Honduras) as well as the head of the Trade Policy Review Body (Harald Aspelund of Iceland), will begin consultations with WTO members.

This will involve ticking boxes of candidates in what officials call consensus building. As it involves cutting out some contenders, these consultations may go on for several rounds, until one candidate is retained to take the post.

A new director-general should be named by end of November.