SECOND TAKE
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR: Multilateralism has never been needed more than now
First priority of new WTO head will be to make sure health supplies flow freely between countries
One global achievement during the pandemic is that major countries put aside their differences and agreed on a person to lead the World Trade Organisation (WTO). And not just any person, but the first woman and first African to be director-general of this guardian institution of open trade.
This consensus hints at what Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala herself calls the WTO’s potential to be a “force for good” in countering the coronavirus’s economic effects and lifting up the world’s most marginalised people. The last thing the world needs, says the Harvard-educated economist, is a “surge of nationalism” in response to the pandemic and a closing of borders and a disruption of global supply chains. Multilateralism has never been more needed than now...
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