Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala has officially resumed as Director-General of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). As she took up the new role on Monday, the former Nigerian finance and foreign minister said she was eager to get straight to work as the first woman and first African to lead the beleaguered World Trade Organization.

“I am coming into one of the most important institutions in the world and we have a lot of work to do,” Iweala said as she arrived for her first day on the job in Geneva. “I feel ready to go.”

Hopes abound that the 66-year-old will be able to help the WTO address a range of towering challenges, including navigating through the global economic crisis triggered by the pandemic.

“The WTO is too important to allow it to be slowed down, paralysed and moribund,” she told AFP a day after her nomination last month.