In March 2021, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala became the first woman and the first African to be appointed to the position of Director-General of the World Trade Organization.
Her vast career has given her decades of experience as an economist, an international development professional and a politician. She has worked across continents in Asia, Africa, Europe, Latin America and North America notably assisting low-income countries.
In an exclusive interview with Euronews, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala delves into what's happening to the global order during the COVID-19 crisis, how the healthcare crisis is affecting different sectors, not just public health, and whether a new multilateralism is emerging.
To watch Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Director-General of the World Trade Organization, get into the burning issues on the global agenda, click on the media player above.
At the State of the Union Conference, Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the European Commission said that the EU is willing to discuss the proposal backed by the United States to waive intellectual property rights for COVID-19 vaccines. At the same time, some countries have expressed concerns and they are perhaps not willing to do that. What is your take on this? Could this add extra time and even more negotiations, when time is really of the essence?
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, WTO Director-General:
"What is happening right now is that members of the WTO, as you rightly noted, they are proponents of the intellectual property waiver. Over 100 developing countries have joined South Africa and India in asking for the waiver because they believe it is material to access for developing countries to solve the vaccine inequity issue. But there are also proponents, as you said, on the other side who believe that the IP waiver may not be the critical issue for an increase in volumes. So my job is to make sure that I bring members together to actually sit down and negotiate a text that would lead to a pragmatic solution that assures access to developing countries to deal with the vaccine inequity whilst at the same time making sure we don’t disincentivize research and innovation. So that is where we are. The recent pronouncements by the United States and so on, I am sure will give an impetus to the negotiations with people, members being willing to come around the table to negotiate text. That is the only way we will make progress.
But I would also like to add this: there are several factors needed to solve the problem of access, inequity for vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics. The WTO can play a role in all of them and is playing a role. One is reducing export restrictions and prohibitions so that supply chains can work easily for both final products as well as raw materials and supplies. We also need trained personnel for manufacturing. Then we need to increase manufacturing capacity. 80% of the world’s exports of vaccines are concentrated in 10 counties in North America, South Asia and Europe.
We have seen the problems with that concentration now. So we also need to use the capacity in emerging markets and developing countries that is available now, that can be turned around in the next 6 to 9 months and put in new capacity. For instance Africa - a continent of 1.3 billion people - imports 99% of these vaccines, so I think something needs to be done to improve manufacturing on that side.
Then you have the problem of IP. With IP must come technology and know-how. Otherwise, you also won’t be able to manufacture the products. So it is a complex problem in three parts as I've explained it. I hope that members will come together to pull all those three parts together in order to be able to help increase volumes".
The COVID-19 pandemic started over a year ago, what lessons have the WTO drawn from it?
Ngozi Okonjo- Iweala, WTO Director-General:
"There are many lessons that emanate from the crisis. I think some of the biggest ones that everyone has drawn from is just how interconnected the world is, just how unprepared the world was for this crisis, whether it's rich countries or poor ones. They need to make sure that our health systems globally, in each country, are strengthened to deal with the next crisis.
But I think another lesson is just the role of trade. Even though trade contracted last year by 5.3% in volume terms, 7% in value terms, trade played a very strong role in making sure that access to medical supplies and equipment was enhanced.
So even though overall trade was contracting, we saw trade in the value of medical supplies and equipment increased by 16%, for personal protective equipment 50%. So that shows you that the multilateral trading system did contribute to helping to solve the problem of moving medical supplies around.
So that's one factor that I think is important and a good lesson for us to know that we need to strengthen and keep the multilateral trading system going.
I think another thing we've learnt is that supply chains have been quite resilient, much more than people would have thought. You know, there is all this talk of reshoring and onshoring because of the problems we saw. But you have seen that movement of agricultural products and food has been pretty resilient and steady, I already spoke of medical supplies.
All in all, we find that supply chains have largely worked, not perfectly, but they've worked. So that's another solid lesson that we've learnt. Finally, I would say that the role of trade in making sure that we deal with problems of access to vaccines, vaccine inequity is also very important. That's where supply chains matter a lot and issues of transfer of technology and access to issues of patents and intellectual property".
Over the past year, we've heard calls to restore production, greater autonomy and self-sufficiency when it comes to the bigger picture of global trade. Should we rethink global trade and new multilateralism and if so, how?
Ngozi Okonjo- Iweala, WTO Director-General:
"Well, first of all, I think that multilateralism has taken a lot of knocks and of course, we've seen an increase in protectionism, which also comes about from some of the deficiencies in globalisation. As we know, globalisation has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty, but it's also left some people behind. There are poorer people within rich countries who have been left behind and there are poorer countries that have not benefited from globalisation.
But that being said, I think that the new multilateralism, if you want to call it that, must be managed and supported in such a way that it can contribute to tackling the problems that globalisation did not deal with and even strengthen the solidarity and cooperation that we need to solve problems of the global commons now.
But let me say something. People are talking about protectionism, deglobalisation, globalisation not working. I prefer to think of it as re-globalisation, that the way globalisation is working is being reorganised.
We've seen the first wave where countries like China and Eastern Europe were integrated into the system, resulting in major gains for the world's economies and for those countries. Now we need a second wave in which continents like Africa, countries in Africa, other lower middle income and low-income countries in Asia and Latin America need to be integrated and will be reintegrated into the global system. I think that will give another second boost to globalisation that will help take care of inequalities that occurred from both technological developments as well as the first wave of globalisation. So let's think of it as re-globalisation, in a strengthening of multilateralism. That's what I like to think of as the new multilateralism".
What actions are required to make sure we do not head towards de-globalisation, but rather re-globalisation with a different view?
Ngozi Okonjo- Iweala, WTO Director-General:
"Well, first of all, we must make sure that the good things about the multilateral system, the trading system, are kept in place and strengthened: the level playing field, the fairness, the non-discrimination, all the principles and the stability of the system are kept going. That is absolutely necessary.
In addition to that, I think we need to see how to bring in, let's say... You know, in most countries in the world, micro, medium and small enterprises are really the engines of economic growth. They create jobs, they move goods around. Yet you find that in many countries they do not participate in the multilateral trading system. They are not on national, regional and global supply chains. So I think one key issue we need to think about in re-globalisation is how do we bring small and medium enterprises into these value chains, into the supply chains that deliver goods all around the world?
Another area is women, women and trade. You'll find that in most countries, 50% or more of these small and medium enterprises are owned by women. How do we involve them and bring them into all of these actions? How do we make new rules on trade that will be supportive of these sections of our global economy? I think those are the things we are looking at in the WTO, to see how re-globalisation can bring in those who have been marginalised in the past".
On the 26th of April, there was the #TradeDay21 and you talked with the European Commission Vice-president, Valdis Dombrovskis, about WTO reforms. Can you tell us about that? How can the European Union weigh in on the process of reforming the WTO?
China is Gabon's biggest trading partner, according to data published by the International Trade Center, a body that compiles trade statistics around the world.
Based on mirror data (provided by partners) on foreign trade, Gabon has achieved a cumulative trade surplus of $16.3 billion between 2009 and 2020. This represents almost 30% of the country's trade surplus over the period.
China has increased its purchases of products from Gabon at an estimated annual rate of 44%, thus becoming the buyer of 63% of the products sold by this country on the world market in 2019.
74.8% of the products sold during this reference year consist of hydrocarbons. This is followed by wood and other products.
Also on the list is the United States, Gabon's second most profitable partner , with a surplus of around US$11 billion between 2009 and 2020.
Also in the top 10 are countries such as Japan, Australia, India, Spain, South Korea, Malaysia, Italy and a surprising third place for Trinidad and Tobago, with a trade surplus of $9 billion over the period. France, the country's former colonial ruler, does not appear in this listing.