World Bank and the
World Bank Group Okonjo-Iweala had a 25-year career at the
World Bank in
Washington, D.C., as a development economist and rose to the No. 2 position of Managing Director, Operations. As Managing Director, she had oversight responsibility for the
World Bank’s $81 billion operational portfolio in Africa,
South Asia,
Europe, and Central Asia. Okonjo-Iweala spearheaded several World Bank initiatives to assist low-income countries during the 2008–2009 food crises and later during the financial crisis. In 2010, she chaired the IDA replenishment, the World Bank’s successful drive to raise $49.3 billion in grants and low-interest credit for the world's poorest country. During her time at the World Bank, she was also a member of the Commission on Effective Development Cooperation with Africa, which was set up by
Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen and held meetings between April and October 2008.
In government Okonjo-Iweala served twice as Nigeria's
Finance Minister (2003–2006 and 2011–2015) and briefly acted as
Foreign Minister in 2006. She was the first woman to hold both positions. During her first tenure as Finance Minister in the administration of President
Olusegun Obasanjo, she spearheaded negotiations with the
Paris Club that led to the elimination of US$30 billion of Nigeria's debt, including the outright cancellation of US$18 billion. In 2003, she led efforts to improve Nigeria’s
macroeconomic management including the implementation of an oil-price based fiscal rule. Revenues accruing above a reference benchmark oil price were saved in a special account, the "Excess Crude Account," which helped to reduce macroeconomic volatility. Okonjo-Iweala was also instrumental in helping Nigeria obtain its first ever
sovereign credit rating (of BB minus) from
Fitch Ratings and
Standard & Poor’s in 2006. After her first term as Finance Minister, she served two months as
Minister of Foreign Affairs in 2006. She returned to the World Bank as a Managing Director in December 2007. In 2011, Okonjo-Iweala was re-appointed as Minister of Finance in Nigeria with the expanded portfolio of the Coordinating Minister for the Economy by President
Goodluck Jonathan. During her second tenure as Finance Minister, Dr Okonjo-Iweala led reforms to enhance transparency of government accounts and strengthened institutions against corruption, including the implementation of the GIFMS (Government Integrated Financial Management System), the IPPMS (Integrated Personnel and Payroll Management System), and the TSA (Treasury Single Accounts). As of February 2015, the IPPIS platform had eliminated 62,893 ghost workers from the system and saved the government about $1.25 billion in the process. Her legacy includes strengthening the country's public financial systems and stimulating the housing sector with the establishment of the Nigerian
Mortgage Refinance Corporation (NMRC) in 2013. Under her leadership, the
National Bureau of Statistics carried out a re-basing exercise of the
Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the first in 24 years, which saw Nigeria emerge as the largest economy in Africa. She also empowered women and youth with the Growing Girls and Women in Nigeria Programme (GWIN), a gender-responsive budgeting system, and the highly acclaimed Youth Enterprise with Innovation Programme (
YouWIN); to support entrepreneurs, that created thousands of jobs. As part of Goodluck Jonathan's administration, she received death threats and endured the kidnapping of her mother when she tried to sanitise Nigeria’s fuel subsidy payments to some marketers in 2012. with Okonjo-Iweala, then managing director of the World Bank, in 2008 In addition to her role in government, Okonjo-Iweala served on the
Commission on Growth and Development (2006–2009), led by Nobel Prize winner
Professor Michael Spence. She was a member of the International Monetary and Finance Committee of the IMF (2003–2006 and 2011–2015) and the
United Nations’ Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel on the Post-2015 Development Agenda (2012–2013). She also co-chaired the
Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation with
UK Secretary Justine Greening. In 2012, she was a candidate for President of the World Bank, running against former Colombian finance minister Jose Antonio Ocampo and
Dartmouth College President
Jim Yong Kim; if elected, she would have become the organization's first female president.
Later career After leaving government, Okonjo-Iweala became a member of the
International Commission on Financing Global Education Opportunity (2015–2016), chaired by
Gordon Brown, and the Eminent Persons Group on Global Financial Governance, which was established by the G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors (2017–2018). Since 2014, she has been co-chairing the Global Commission for the
Economy and Climate, with
Nicholas Stern and
Paul Polman. She also served as Chair of the Board of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance (2016–2020). Okonjo-Iweala is the founder of Nigeria's first indigenous opinion-research organization, NOI-Polls. She also founded the Centre for the Study of the Economies of Africa (C-SEA), a development research think-tank based in Abuja, and is a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the
Center for Global Development and the
Brookings Institution. Since 2019, Okonjo-Iweala has been part of
UNESCO's International Commission on the Futures of Education, chaired by
Sahle-Work Zewde. Also since 2019, she has been serving on the High-Level Council on Leadership & Management for Development of the Aspen Management Partnership for Health (AMP Health). In 2020, the
International Monetary Fund's Managing Director
Kristalina Georgieva appointed her to an external advisory group to provide input on policy challenges. Also in 2020, she was appointed by the
African Union (AU) as special envoy to solicit international support to help the continent deal with the economic impact of the
COVID-19 pandemic, as well as World Health Organization COVID-19 Special Envoy. In June 2020,
Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari nominated Okonjo-Iweala as the country’s candidate to be director-general of the
World Trade Organization (WTO). She later advanced to the final round of the election and eventually competed with
Yoo Myung-hee. Ahead of the vote, she received the backing of the
European Union for her candidacy. In October 2020, the United States government indicated that it would not back Okonjo-Iweala's candidacy. The WTO in its formal report said that Okonjo-Iweala "clearly carried the largest support by Members in the final round; and, enjoyed broad support from Members from all levels of development and from all geographic regions and has done so throughout the process" On 5 February 2021, Yoo Myung-hee announced her withdrawal from the race in "close consultation with the United States." According to a statement issued from the United States Trade Representative, “The United States takes note of today’s decision by the Republic of Korea’s Trade Minister Yoo Myung-hee to withdraw her candidacy for Director General of the WTO. The
Biden-Harris Administration is pleased to express its strong support for the candidacy of Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala as the next Director General of the WTO." Okonjo-Iweala was unanimously appointed the next director-general on 15 February. She began her career as Director General of the WTO on 1 March 2021. 2025 In early 2021, Okonjo-Iweala was appointed co-chair, alongside
Tharman Shanmugaratnam and
Lawrence Summers, of the G20 High Level Independent Panel (HLIP) on financing the global commons for pandemic preparedness and response and was one of the founders of the COVAX Facility, designed to get affordable vaccines to Low and Middle-Income Countries. In July 2021, she joined the Multilateral Leaders Task Force on
COVID-19 Vaccines, Therapeutics, and Diagnostics for Developing Countries, co-chaired by
Tedros Adhanom and
David Malpass. In January 2022, Okonjo-Iweala joined The Group of thirty (G30), an independent body of distinguished policymakers from around the world. In November 2024, she was reappointed to serve her second term as the director-general of the
World Trade Organization (WTO). == Personal life ==