Nigeria’s Minister of Finance, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has bagged the African Finance Minister of the year award for her outstanding performance as a finance minister.

The News Agency of Nigeria, NAN, reports that the award was presented to Okonjo-Iweala on Friday, 10 October, 2014, by the African Investor Magazine at the ongoing annual meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Washington DC.

It was gathered that while receiving the award, the minister thanked the organisers for the award and described it as an absolute honour and auspicious.

She also implored all investors in Africa to join the fight against the deadly Ebola virus disease that is ravaging some countries in West Africa.

“What is happening in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra-Leone and the success we had in Nigeria and Senegal in containing this virus should not be allowed to set Africa back.

“You as private sector and friends of Africa need to send the message that we should not be so afraid of Ebola that we stigmatise the whole continent.

“I think that it is only with your own leadership, as African investors, that the rest of the world can see which way they should pass. So, I am really urging you to be ambassadors to the continent,” she said.

Okonjo-Iweala added that in spite of the challenges facing the continent, African leaders should sustain the successes recorded in the past.

According to the minister, the challenges confronting Africa include infrastructure, governance, poor education system, employment, corruption, among others.

“We are not shying away from these challenges but the turning point now is that we are in the continent where we have the political will and confidence to tackle these challenges.

“I think that we as Africans must always take the lead because if we don’t solve our problems, nobody can do it for us,” she said.

Okonjo-Iweala also asked for continuous partnership with the private sector, donor agencies and non-governmental organisations.

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala (born June 13, 1954) is a globally renowned Nigerian economist best known for her two terms as Finance Minister of Nigeria (her current position) and for her work at the World Bank, including several years as one of its Managing Directors (October 2007–July 2011). She briefly held the position of Foreign Minister of Nigeria in 2006.

In 2007, Okonjo-Iweala was considered as a possible replacement for former World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz. Subsequently, in 2012, she became one of three candidates in the race to replace World Bank President Robert Zoellick at the end of his term of office in June 2012.

On April 16, 2012 it was announced that she had been unsuccessful in her bid for the World Bank presidency, having lost to the US nominee, Jim Yong Kim. This outcome had been widely anticipated.

However, this was the first contested election for World Bank president after the demise in 2010 of the Gentlemen’s Agreement that the US would appoint the World Bank president and Europe would appoint the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund.