| Biography |
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala (born June 13, 1954) is a fellow at the Brookings Institution [1]. She is the former Finance Minister of Nigeria and Foreign Minister of Nigeria, notable for being the first woman to hold either of these positions. She served as finance minister from July 2003 until her appointment as foreign minister in June 2006. She resigned as Nigeria's Foreign Minister on August 3, 2006. Iweala was considered as a possible replacement for embattled World Bank President, Paul Wolfowitz.
Dr. Okonjo-Iweala was educated at Harvard University (A.B. Magna Cum Laude 1977) and has her Ph.D. in regional economics and development from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Prior to her ministerial career in Nigeria, Dr. Okonjo-Iweala was vice-president and corporate secretary of the World Bank Group. She left the Bank in 2003 after she was appointed Finance Minister by President Olusegun Obasanjo on 15 July. Both during her years at the World Bank and in her service to Nigeria, she developed a reputation for hard work on democratization and debt management issues. Some however consider her economic reform policies not beneficial to the poor who constitute approximately 80% of the population. Others regard her reforms as a necessary first step in retooling Nigeria's finances, battered by over 15 years of military dictatorship, prior to the restoration of democracy in 1999. In October 2005, she led the Nigerian team that struck a deal with the Paris Club, a group of bilateral creditors, to pay off Nigeria's external debt. She also introduced in Nigeria the practice of publishing each state's monthly financial allocation from the federal government in the newspapers. This was to help everyday Nigerians understand exactly how much their states received and a crucial step in the battle against corruption in Nigeria. |
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