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Fighting Nigeria's Wrongs: How an MIT Alumna Helped Her Homeland

  • Nancy DuVergne Smith
  • slice.mit.edu
  • 2

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Economist Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala PhD '81, Nigeria’s coordinating minister for the economy and minister of finance, has been a crucial player in her country’s economic reforms. The challenges are enormous. Nigeria, a complex nation with a notable history of corruption and mismanagement, faced huge debt burdens and little hope of change. Yet from 2003 to 2006, Okonjo-Iweala stepped into the fray—with admirable results. Her new MIT Press book, Reforming the Unreformable: Lessons from Nigeria describes the transformation.

What were the results? In Nigeria’s Debt Management Office and later as minister of finance, she spearheaded negotiations that led to the cancellation of some 60 percent of Nigeria’s external debt. The book profiles those debt negotiations, details the fight against corruption, and traces the struggle to implement macroeconomic and structural reforms. A 2005 interview in The Guardian cites her willingness—make that eagerness—to fight corruption and her effectiveness as she redirected oil income away from a tiny elite and toward improvements like clean water for the nation. She also fired corrupt officials, shrank a bloated civil service; and cracked down on letter and Internet scams.

Okonjo-Iweala, who served as managing director of the World Bank and was a recent candidate for its presidency, is the daughter of the king of the Igbo tribe, earned an undergraduate degree from Harvard, and is married and the mother of four. Last summer, she was named as one of Forbes magazine's Powerful Women.

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Ebuka

Thu, 01/02/2014 3:20am

A great country like Nigeria should be capable of resolving the challenges it facing today. The worst is its educational challenges. Even after schooling its graduates still face problem with their certificate, Read about it here 'Discrimination between HND Holders and University Graduates in Nigeria'
http://www.sosmaitonline.com/2013/10/hnd-bsc-discrimination-nigeria.html

Sode

Tue, 11/20/2012 1:25am

I would have done a better job. The country is still one of the most corrupt countries in the world. The country has not really achieved anything significant after 52 years of independence. The country lacks a basic supply of electricity, terrible roads, no adequate supply of water, non-existent hospitals and this is helping her homeland. Nigeria has oil and there is always the scarcity of petrol. The people have been suffering for a long time, and this is achievement. We need to compare Nigeria to Singapore. Nigeria even lacks basic demographic information that is needed for development and you guys are proud of this. We Nigerians know about the suffering of the masses. Where is the Nigeria oil wealth??? I am not sure about how you guys come to this conclusion. Nigeria has a long way to go!!!

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