Nigeria’s first female minister of finance, Okonjo-Iweala has just been named the 'Africa Person of the Year' by Forbes.

Okonjo-Iweala who is the prime candidate for the office of the Director-General of the World Trade Organisation bagged the noble award on Tuesday, December 1.

Other prominent Nigerians to have won the prestigious award include Muhammad Sanusi II (2013), former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria; Aliko Dangote (2014), president of the Dangote Group.

Recall also that in 2019, Akinwumi Adesina, president of the African Development Bank (AfDB), won the award for his outstanding work at the bank and a distinguished career in agriculture and finance.

The Forbes Africa-CNBC award is the latest honour clinched by the multi-award-winning development economist, one of the African Union (AU) Special Envoys appointed to mobilize international support for Africa’s efforts to address the COVID-19 economic fallout.

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She is also the World Health Organisation (WHO) special envoy for the newly inaugurated Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) accelerator and its offshoot the COVAX facility, an international collaboration aimed at accelerating the development, production, and equitable distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, drugs and tests kits around the world with the specific objective of ensuring timely, affordable and equitable access to poor countries.

Okonjo-Iweala also serves as the Chair of the Board of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, a public-private global health partnership that has immunised 760 million children in developing countries and saved 13 million lives.