Topics:
Energy, Governments and Development, Corruption, Transparency, and Governance, US Development Policy, Aid Effectiveness, Digital Dividends: Identity, Payments, and Subsidy Reform, Africa, Zimbabwe's Crisis and Future, Oil to Cash: Fighting the Resource Curse through Cash Transfers, Nigerian Debt Relief, International Institutions
Expertise
Africa, energy, development finance, cash transfers, US-Africa relations
Bio
Todd Moss is a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development where he leads the Energy for Growth Hub and his research focuses on US-Africa relations, energy policy, and private investment. Moss is also a nonresident scholar at the Center for Energy Studies at Rice University’s Baker Institute and the Payne Institute at the Colorado School of Mines. He served as COO/VP at the Center from 2009-2016. Moss is currently working on electrification in Africa, cash transfers in new oil economies, and modernizing US development finance tools. In the past he led CGD’s work on Nigerian debt, reconstruction in Zimbabwe, the future of the World Bank’s soft loan IDA, and the African Development Bank.
Moss served as Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of African Affairs at the U.S. Department of State 2007-2008 while on leave from CGD. Previously, he has been a Lecturer at the London School of Economics (LSE) and worked at the World Bank, the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) and the Overseas Development Council. Moss is the author of numerous articles and books, including African Development: Making Sense of the Issues and Actors (2018) and Oil to Cash: Fighting the Resource Curse with Cash Transfers (2015). He holds a PhD from the University of London’s SOAS and a BA from Tufts University.
Moss also writes an international thriller series for Penguin’s Putnam Books about a State Department crisis manager including The Golden Hour (2014), Minute Zero (2015), Ghosts of Havana (2016), and The Shadow List (2017).
Media Contact
Holly Shulman
hshulman@cgdev.org
Featured Work
In the News
October 14, 2018
High-res photo
More From Todd Moss
November 17, 2017
Publication
This paper covers qualitative case studies from Iran, Nigeria, and India to illustrate a series of lessons for governments implementing subsidy reform policies. From these three country experiences, we find that fostering public support to implement lasting reform may depend on four measures: (1) forming a public engagement plan and a comprehensive reform policy that are then clearly communicated to the public in advance of price increases; (2) phasing in price adjustments over a period of time to ease absorption; (3) providing a targeted compensatory cash transfer to alleviate financial impacts on low- to middle-income households; and (4) capitalizing on favorable global macroeconomic conditions.
November 9, 2017
Blog Post
The World Bank now has three benchmarks for measuring poverty. The “headline” extreme poverty threshold of $1.90/day will stay, but two new international poverty lines were added for lower middle-income ($3.20/day) and upper middle-income ($5.50/day) countries. While it’s great that the World Bank is bringing a little more nuance to the way we define poverty, it's still a repackaging of Lant Pritchett’s kinky development.
September 7, 2017
Event
In The Shadow List, State Department crisis expert Judd Ryker is chasing an American banker who’s disappeared after falling for a Nigerian scam. Meanwhile, his CIA wife Jessica is hunting a notorious Russian mob boss. Little do they know, they’re pulling on opposite ends of the same dangerous thread. Throw in Chinese oil companies under attack, corrupt American politicians, a kidnapped NBA star, and an undercover FBI sting operation and it’s the latest diplomatic thriller ripped from the headlines by CGD senior fellow Todd Moss.
June 6, 2017
Blog Post
On June 5, President Trump announced his intent to nominate Ray Washburne as the President of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) and David Bohigian as Executive Vice President. OPIC, as America’s development finance institution, advances US foreign policy priorities by leveraging debt and insurance to unlock private capital in developing countries.
May 31, 2017
Blog Post
Are some countries too poor to consume a lot more energy? Or is income growth being held back by a lack of reliable and affordable electricity? While there is a strong relationship between energy consumption and income, the direction of causality is often far less clear. One way to estimate unmet demand may be to try to compare pairs of countries—e.g., how much additional energy does Kenya need to reach the level of Tunisia?
May 31, 2017
Blog Post
The White House delivered an FY2018 budget request, featuring deep spending reductions, to a less-than-receptive Congress early last week. In a series of blog posts, CGD experts sounded off on the proposed cuts to foreign aid and the philosophy that seems to guide them—including the administration’s plans to shutter the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, continued support for the Millennium Challenge Corporation, and the merits and potential downsides of a proposal to shift some security assistance from grants to loans.
Pages
April 24, 2018
Blog Post
Anyone who follows this blog knows I’m a big fan of the US electrification initiative Power Africa because of its national security, economic, and developmental benefits.
January 30, 2014
Publication
We conservatively estimate that more than 60 million additional people in poor nations could gain access to electricity if the Overseas Private Investment Corporation were allowed to invest in natural gas projects, not just renewables.
April 1, 2005
Publication
Nigeria has $33 billion in external debt. The government has been trying unsuccessfully for years to cut a deal with creditors to reduce its external obligations but to date has only managed to gain non-concessional restructuring. The major creditors also have good reasons for wanting to seek a resolution, yet agreement has been elusive. Fortunately, there is a brief window of opportunity in 2005 to find a compromise that can meet the needs of both sides. This note briefly outlines a proposal for striking such a deal through a discounted debt buyback.
May 1, 2004
Publication
*REVISED Version September 2004
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are unlikely to be met by 2015, even if huge increases in development assistance materialize. The rates of progress required by many of the goals are at the edges of or beyond historical precedent. Many countries making extraordinarily rapid progress on MDG indicators, due in large part to aid, will nonetheless not reach the MDGs. Unrealistic targets thus may turn successes into perceptions of failure, serving to undermine future constituencies for aid (in donors) and reform (in recipients). This would be unfortunate given the vital role of aid and reform in the development process and the need for long-term, sustained aid commitments.
May 30, 2017
Publication
The rise of disruptive technologies is profoundly transforming systems of production and management across sectors and industries, but primarily in wealthy countries. This paper considers how disruptive technologies could help improve power sector reform and development in African markets. In particular, it explores the role that might be played by the Internet of Things, cloud computing, and advanced analytics.
July 20, 2015
Publication
As late as 1930, only 1 in 10 rural Americans had access to electricity. In subsequent years, rapidly increasing power generation and growing the electrical grid across the country became major pillars of the American battle against domestic poverty and a foundation for decades of economic growth and wealth creation. Today, energy access is universal in the United States. Reliable and affordable electricity is considered a basic necessity of life, an indispensable input to almost every aspect of modern living.
That same transformation is possible today in large parts of the developing world, where lack of access to modern energy harms quality of life and constrains economic growth. A concerted policy effort by the United States could help unleash tremendous human and market potential around the world. Pushing to promote electricity generation and access could significantly contribute to doing good in developing countries — and doing well for the United States.
September 12, 2005
Publication
Many poor countries, especially in Africa, will miss the MDGs by a large margin. But neither African inaction nor a lack of aid will necessarily be the reason. Instead, responsibility for near-certain ‘failure’ lies with the overly-ambitious goals themselves and unrealistic expectations placed on aid. While the MDGs may have galvanized activists and encouraged bigger aid budgets, over-reaching brings risks as well. Promising too much leads to disillusionment and can erode the constituency for long-term engagement with the developing world.
February 3, 2016
Publication
Despite the success of the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) in reducing the debt burdens of low-income countries, at least eleven Sub-Saharan African countries are currently in, or face a high risk of, debt distress. A few of those currently at risk include countries that have been excluded from traditional debt relief frameworks. For countries outside the HIPC process, this paper lays out the (formidable) steps for retroactive HIPC inclusion, concluding with lessons for countries seeking exceptional debt relief treatment.
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