First published in Daily Maverick 168 Weekly newspaper

Okonjo-Iweala served two terms as Nigerian finance minister and spent 25 years at the World Bank, reaching the number two position as managing director of operations.

Over the past few months, she beat off strong competition to emerge as the candidate with the overwhelming majority of support of member states in a selection committee, to become the next director-general of the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

Another prominent African, Amina Mohamed, the Kenyan cabinet minister and former international diplomat, was also in the race for the WTO job until very near the end.

Meanwhile, Cameroonian Vera Songwe, executive secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Africa (Uneca) since August 2017, is a frontrunner to head the World Bank’s private sector arm, the International Finance Corporation (IFC). Before taking over Uneca, Songwe was the IFC’s regional director for West and Central Africa.

Under its outgoing CEO, the Frenchman Philippe Le Houérou, it has sometimes been criticised for financing wealthy investors who don’t really need its support. Songwe is expected to refocus IFC financing on more deserving investors if she gets the job.

Going from economics to justice, the five judges of Malawi’s Constitutional Court who bravely annulled the re-election of then incumbent President Peter Mutharika in May 2019 must also be contenders.

Justices Healey Potani, Ivy Kamanga, Redson Kapindu, Dingiswayo Madise and Michael Tembo ruled in February this year that Mutharika’s victory had been rigged. The judges resisted bribe attempts and threats, travelling to court with armed escorts and wearing bulletproof vests.

In the runoff election they ordered, Mutharika lost to opposition candidate Lazarus Chakwera.

In October, British think-tank Chatham House awarded its annual prize to the five judges for their independence and bravery.

Another candidate for runner-up would be Vanessa Nakate, a Ugandan climate justice activist. In 2019, she staged a climate protest in front of Uganda’s parliament. She founded the Youth for Future Africa and the Africa-based Rise Up Movement, and spoke at the COP25 gathering in Spain in 2019.

The BBC ranked her among its top 100 Women for 2020.

Axel Emmanuel Gbaou, founder and CEO of Le Chocolatier Ivoirien, must also be a contender. His company manufactures handcrafted, quality chocolate using sustainable cultivation methods.

He started his career in the banking sector and earned degrees in international public law and taxation. He began his chocolatier company from his mother’s kitchen.

The wider significance of his achievement is that Africa generally suffers from a balance of trade deficit with the rest of the world, as it exports mainly raw materials and imports almost all of its manufactured goods. Côte d’Ivoire is the world’s largest producer of cocoa but exports almost all of it in raw form to countries like Switzerland and Belgium, which process it into quality, expensive chocolate. Gbaou is a pioneer in trying to reverse that trend.

Closer to home, we have candidates such as Beatrice Mtetwa, Hopewell Chin’ono and Tsitsi Dangarembga. All three have been heroic in defying Zimbabwe’s ruling Zanu-PF in its attack on freedom, the rule of law and democracy.

Mtetwa is a lawyer who has long specialised in defending opposition politicians and activists against government repression.

Chin’ono, a freelance journalist, has been hounded and imprisoned by the authorities for exposing corruption.

Dangarembga is a novelist, playwright and filmmaker whose debut novel Nervous Conditions was listed by the BBC in 2018 as one of the top 100 books that have shaped the world.

In 2020, her novel This Mournable Body was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. She was arrested on 31 July 2020 in Harare as the government moved to stifle a big opposition protest but was later released.

Dr Jemimah Kariuki, an obstetrician-gynaecologist at Nairobi’s Kenyatta Hospital, is one of the many Africans who rose to meet the challenge of the Covid-19 pandemic.

She grew alarmed at the number of women giving birth at home rather than in hospital, as they feared being infected with the coronavirus in hospital or being attacked by police if they visited a hospital after hours. So she started Wheels for Life, a free ambulance service for mothers in labour after dark.

There are many other contenders. Such as Ilwad Elman a Somali-Canadian social activist.

Or Loza Abera Geinore, an Ethiopian football player who currently plays for Birkirakara Women of the Malta Women’s Premier League and the Ethiopian Women’s National Football Team as a forward.

Or Houda Abouz, a Moroccan rap artist “speaking her mind” in a country where rap is considered vulgar, especially for women.

The list could go on. DM168