Nigeria’s former Minister of Finance, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, resumed duty as the Director General of the World Trade Organisation, WTO, March 1, 2021.

This comes weeks after her appointment was endorsed by the United States and approved by the trade organization.

Her appointment was ratified on February 15, 2021.

“WTO members have just agreed to appoint Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala as the next Director-General,” the global trade body said in the statement.

Her first day on the job in Geneva coincides with the annual meeting of WTO’s General Council, where delegates are expected to agree that the organisation’s next ministerial conference, which had been scheduled for last year but was postponed due to the pandemic, will be held in Geneva in December.

She is the first woman and the first African to lead the WTO.

One of her first tasks will be to nominate four new deputy directors to help recharge the organisation’s negotiating mechanisms.

In the midst of a global economic crisis triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, she has plenty of challenges on her plate.