Sports CS Amina Mohamed has not made it to the final leg of the race for the WTO job, according to Bloomberg.
It said World Trade Organization members selected two final candidates – Nigeria’s Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and South Korea’s Yoo Myung-hee – to advance to the final round.
EU had favoured Okonjo-Iweala and Myung-hee.
The East African Council of Ministers EACM, had endorsed Mohamed.
The WTO is, however, set to have the first female to head the organisation in its 25 history.
Okonjo-Iweala has served as Nigeria’s finance minister and Foreign Affairs minister, while Yoo is South Korea’s trade minister.
President Uhuru Kenyatta had endorsed Mohamed, saying she understands the WTO and its processes, having chaired all its high-level decision-making bodies.
“For example, the Ministerial Conference, General Council, Dispute Settlement Body as well as the Trade Policy Review Body,” Uhuru said.
“The length and breadth of her experience with the WTO and the multilateral trading system combined with her extensive track record in international relations and her political experience, I believe is unparalleled,” President Kenyatta said on July 9.
The President recalled Amina chaired the 10th WTO Ministerial Conference in Nairobi in 2015.
“From a personal perspective, my experience working with her over the years and watching her work with others has convinced me that she is an effective leader and without doubt, a master consensus builder,” Uhuru said.
WTO EXPERIENCE
According to her biography on the WTO website, Amina has had a distinguished diplomatic career since 1986, rising through the ranks to become Ambassador/Permanent Representative at Geneva in 2000.
“As the Permanent Representative, she represented Kenya in the UN system, and the WTO among other international organisations,” the biography states.
But before that, she had a legal career, for which she was admitted to the bar on July 3.
Amina began her career in 1985 as a legal officer at the Ministry of Local Government, a position that offered her an opportunity to work with the World Bank .
Between 1986-90, she worked as legal adviser in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “where she drafted and negotiated various bilateral and international treaties”.
In the UN system, she chaired the Trade Policy Review Body in 2003, and served as the chairperson of the Dispute Settlement Body in 20014. She became the first woman to chair the WTO’s General Council in 2005.
Source: The Star
