Africans are winning top jobs at international institutions

THE WORLD’SUN,WHOWTOIFCIMFIMF big multilateral institutions are always keen to trumpet their global outlook. Art from far-flung corners of the world adorns their headquarters—and should a visitor ever need to consult a massive map of the world, one is rarely far away. Yet in one area their global credentials have not always matched up: leadership. Most of the bosses of multilateral institutions have been white men. Sub-Saharan Africans, especially, have been overlooked. Until 2017 only one had led a big multilateral organisation: Kofi Annan, who ran the which rotates its top job by region, from 1997 to 2006.Today Africans lead several global institutions. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, an Ethiopian, has steered the World Health Organisation () through the pandemic. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, a Nigerian, heads the World Trade Organisation (). Makh tar Diop, a Senegalese, presides over an investment portfolio worth about $64bn at the International Finance Corporation (), the semi-independent arm of the World Bank that invests in private firms. A stitch-up gives the top jobs at the World Bank and to America and Europe. But for just the second time a sub-Saharan African, Antoinette Sayeh of Liberia, is a deputy managing director of the .