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, Climate Finance, 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
May 29, 2018
February 28, 2018
High-res photo
More From Todd Moss
June 7, 2016
Blog Post
Last week CGD hosted an event on advancing women’s political leadership, featuring Malawi’s first female president and Africa’s second, President Joyce Banda. President Banda discussed her own experiences as a woman in African politics and her current work to encourage other women to become political leaders, arguing forcefully for leveling the playing field
May 31, 2016
Blog Post
Lobbyists. They’re everything that’s wrong about Washington DC. If that’s your perspective, then veteran lobbyist K. Riva Levinson’s new book will rock your world.
May 25, 2016
Blog Post
America’s development finance agency is constantly being pulled in three directions.
June 9, 2016
Event
Please join us for a special event marking the release of Choosing the Hero: My Improbable Journey and the Rise of Africaʼs First Woman President by K. Riva Levinson. The book is an insider’s account of Riva’s longtime relationship with Liberia’s Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, two women warriors in battle to help a nation recover from war, and a window into the strange policy trenches of Washington DC.
May 12, 2016
Blog Post
After several starts and stops, the Nigerian government has finally removed fuel subsidies, resulting in an overnight price hike of 67 percent. The economic logic of subsidy reform is clear. What’s notable, and potentially problematic, is that the government is planning to use any savings from lifting the fuel subsidy in the regular budget.
May 4, 2016
Blog Post
We were bemused to read the World Bank’s press release of April 28, dateline Singapore: “The winners for the 2015-2016 Competition Advocacy Contest are: Mexico and Zimbabwe for competition advocacy in fast growing and innovative markets.” Hmmm.
May 24, 2016
Publications
As the U.S. government’s development finance institution, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) provides investors with financing, political risk insurance, and support for private equity investment funds when commercial funding cannot be obtained elsewhere. Its mandate is to mobilize private capital to help address critical development challenges and to advance U.S. foreign policy and national security priorities. However, balancing risks, financial needs, and development benefits comes with tradeoffs.
April 26, 2016
Blog Post
Even among policymakers, there is plenty of misunderstanding around how the US government’s premier agency charged with advancing a private sector-based development agenda, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), actually operates. When we searched for a database with key OPIC project-level information, we couldn’t find one. So we spent months manually entering all of the publicly available information on OPIC projects into a single location, the OPIC Scraped Portfolio dataset.
Pages
September 7, 2006
Publications
Donald Kaberuka, the new president of the African Development Bank, leads an institution whose financial standing has been restored from the near collapse of 1995, but whose operational credibility remains a work-in-progress. This CGD working group report offers external, independent advice to Kaberuka and the Bank's board of directors on broad principles to guide the Bank’s renewal. The report contains six bold yet achievable recommendations for management and shareholders as they address the urgent task of reforming Africa's development bank. Prominent among the recommendations is a strong focus on infrastructure.
July 28, 2014
Blog Post
We are one week away from the first ever US-Africa Summit. As some fifty heads of state prepare to descend on Washington DC on Aug 4, the only certainties are that the hotels will be packed and downtown traffic will be a snarl. But what to expect from the Summit itself?
January 30, 2014
Blog Post
Of the many outcomes in the FY2014 Omnibus Appropriations legislation, one that stood out was buried in section 7081. This provision now allows the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) to invest in fossil fuel power projects in IDA and IDA-blend countries. In other words, OPIC’s carbon cap has been lifted at least until the end of September.
March 17, 2015
Publications
The imperative for US development finance has increased significantly due to a number of factors over the last decade. There is growing demand for private investment and finance from businesses, citizens, and governments in developing countries. Given the scale of challenges and opportunities, especially in promoting infrastructure investments and expanding productive sectors, there is an increasingly recognized need to promote private sector-based solutions.
May 8, 2009
Publications
Senior fellow Todd Moss investigates how the aftershocks of the global economic downturn are affecting Africa. African countries that take the right steps to mitigate the pain will be poised to benefit from the eventual recovery; those that don't will be left behind.
November 21, 2011
Blog Post
Ghana’s recent recalculation of its GDP led to an overnight $500 per capita jump, putting in motion unexpectedly rapid graduation from the International Development Association (IDA) and ultimately a new relationship with the World Bank. In this week’s Wonkcast, I speak with Todd Moss, vice president for programs and senior fellow at CGD, about his recent trip to the newly categorized lower-middle income country, the implications of IDA graduation, and a sudden influx of oil wealth.
March 7, 2013
Publications
Overall, regional indices have become increasingly correlated with the S&P 500 index. Africa lags behind this trend some, and that lag could present opportunities for investors and policymakers.
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