Nigeria’s former Minster of Finance, Okonjo-Iweala has been voted Africa Person of the Year by Forbes magazine.
The award is coming weeks after the Chair of the General Council of the World Trade Organization, Dr David Walker and Facilitators of the process for the Appointment of Directors-General formally submitted her name as the WTO DG designate – the candidate who has garnered the most support to head the organization.
It will be recalled that Dr Okonjo-Iweala, who is a leading candidate for the office of the Director-General World Trade Organisation, emerged the overwhelming choice of WTO member-countries following a keenly contested race in which she got the majority support of the 164 member countries.
The Forbes Africa-CNBC award is the latest honour clinched by the multi-award winning development economist, one of the African Union (AU) Special Envoys appointed to mobilize international support for Africa’s efforts to address the COVID-19 economic fallout.
She is also the World Health Organisation (WHO) Special Envoy for the newly inaugurated Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) accelerator and its offshoot the COVAX facility, an international collaboration aimed at accelerating the development, production, and equitable distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, drugs and tests kits around the world with the specific objective of ensuring timely, affordable and equitable access to poor countries.
Okonjo-Iweala also serves as the Chair of the Board of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, a public-private global health partnership that has immunised 760 million children in developing countries and saved 13 million lives.
Reacting to the news, Okonjo-Iweala, who is known for her humility and humanity, expressed her delight at the recognition and dedicated the award to Africans facing the health and socio-economic challenges of Covid-19 during a very difficult year.
Okonjo-Iweala said:
It is a great honour to serve Africa in different capacitie.
I look forward to deploying my energies at the WTO for Africa and the world.
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Okonjo-Iweala has received numerous recognitions and awards. Dr. Okonjo-Iweala has been listed as one of the 50 Greatest World Leaders (Fortune, 2015), the Top 100 Most Influential People in the World (TIME, 2014), the Top 100 Global Thinkers (Foreign Policy, 2011 and 2012), the Top 100 Most Powerful Women in the World (Forbes, 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014), the Top 3 Most Powerful Women in Africa (Forbes, 2012), the Top 10 Most Influential Women in Africa (Forbes, 2011), the Top 100 Women in the World (The Guardian, 2011), the Top 150 Women in the World (Newsweek, 2011), the Top 100 most inspiring people in the World Delivering for Girls and Women (Women Deliver, 2011). She received the Women’s Economic Empowerment Award from WEConnect International (2017) and was listed among 73 “brilliant” business influencers in the world by Condé Nast International.
Other prominent Nigerians who have won the prestigious Forbes Magazine award include, former governor of the central bank of Nigeria, Sanusi Lamido; President of the African Development Bank (AfDB), Akinwunmi Adesina; and Nigerian billionaire, Aliko Dangote.
