WTO reform should be able to move ahead.   Ottawa—A sooner than expected selection of new director-general to head the World Trade Organization (WTO) is welcome news for the campaign to reform it, says Trade Minister Mary Ng and the Canadian Agri-Food Trade Alliance (CAFTA). Ng said the selection of Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala from Nigeria will give the WTO the strong leadership “required to bring together like-minded countries and make trade more efficient and beneficial for everyone.” She succeeds Roberto Azevedo who retired last August. “Dr. Okonjo-Iweala's commitment to bringing about positive change is evident in her work with international organizations and her public service in Nigeria, where she served in many leading roles,” Ng said. Canada is “confident that Dr. Okonjo-Iweala will work constructively with all WTO members to ensure the organization is able to address the challenges of the 21st Century.” Ng serves as chair of the Ottawa Group on WTO reform and hopes its new leader “will pave the way for an inclusive, sustainable and resilient global economic recovery for Canadians and people around the world.” CAFTA Executive-Director Claire Citeau said there was a lot of concern that agreeing on a replacement for Azevedo would drag on and on. “That there is a captain at the helm of the global trading ship is good news. Now the real hard work can start, there is an opportunity to focus on delivering better trade and actually doing more to support rules-based multilateral trade.” She said substantive discussions on WTO reforms can resume as well as preparations for the next ministerial conference possibly in December. CAFTA also wants to see the Ottawa Group accelerate work to reform the WTO starting with fixing the dispute resolution processes, disrupted by the Trump administration, to ensure ongoing functionality, revitalizing the multilateral negotiation process and restructuring the overall governance of the WTO. “Global traders need stability, predictability, transparency and a level playing field,” she said. “The WTO can help provide the fair chance to compete that sectors such as agrifood require. “Now is the time for the world to gets its act together on global trade: in recent years, growing protectionism and blatant disrespect of rules has put called free trade into question,” Citeau said. “This has been exacerbated with COVID, we have seen new tensions, instability and the undermining of the entire global trading system even more so than before.” Getting the Appellate Body functioning again is a key task. “With the blockage of appointment of new judges to it, appeal cases can't be heard.” While Canada and other countries have implemented interim measures to hear disputes, “these are stop-gap measure only; every day the Appellate Body remains unable to fully function is another day that the global trading system remains comatose.” Another priority is updating and strengthening the WTO rules to ensure free and fair competition and predictability, she said. They include measures against trade distortive subsidies and domestic support, rules to address market-distorting practices, ensuring that regulatory measures are science based and improving market access. Alex Binkley is a freelance journalist and writes for domestic and international publications about agriculture, food and transportation issues. He's also the author of two science fiction novels with more in the works.