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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).
Books
- African Development: Making Sense of the Issues and Actors, Lynne Rienner, 2018.
- African Emerging Markets, Contemporary Issues, Vol II, (edited with Sam Mensah), African Capital Markets Forum, Accra, 2004.
- Adventure Capitalism: Globalization and the Political Economy of Stock Markets in Africa, Palgrave MacMillan, 2003.
Policy Reports:
- Strategic Framework for Assistance to Africa: IDA and the Emerging Partnership Model, with Alan Gelb, et al, Africa Region, World Bank, Washington DC, January 2004.
- The Other Costs of High Debt in Poor Countries: Growth, Policy Dynamics, and Institutions, (PDF, 211.44KB) with Hanley S. Chiang, World Bank, HIPC Unit, August 2003.
- The Partnership Imperative: Maintaining American Leadership in a New Era, with Catherine Gwin et al, Overseas Department Council, Washington DC, 1997.
Selected Journals/Chapters
- “An Aid-Institutions Paradox? Aid dependency and state building in sub-Saharan Africa,” with Nicolas van de Walle and Gunilla Pettersson, in William Easterly (ed.) Reinventing Aid, MIT Press, Cambridge, 2008.
- “The Ghost of 0.7%: Origins and Relevance of the International Aid Target,” with Michael Clemens, International Journal of Development Issues, Vol. 6, No. 1, 2007.
- “Zimbabwe’s Meltdown: Anatomy of a Peacetime Economic Collapse,” The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs, Vol. 31, No. 2, Summer 2007.
- “The Trouble with the MDGs: Confronting Expectations of Aid and Development Success,” with Michael Clemens and Charles Kenny, World Development, Vol. 35, No. 5, May 2007.
- “Briefing: The G8’s Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative and Poverty Reduction in Sub-Saharan Africa”, African Affairs, Vol. 105, No. 419, April 2006.
- “After Mugabe: Applying Post-Conflict Recovery Lessons to Zimbabwe” (PDF, 211KB); Africa Policy Journal, Harvard University, Spring 2006, V.I.
- “Compassionate Conservatives of Conservative Compassionates? US political parties and bilateral foreign assistance to Africa”, with Markus Goldstein, Journal of Development Studies, Vol. 24, No. 1, October 2005.
- “Is Africa’s Skepticism of Foreign Capital Justified? Preliminary Evidence from Firm Survey Data in East Africa”, with Vijaya Ramachandran and Manju Kedia Shah, in Magnus Blomstrom, Edward Graham, and Theodore Moran (eds), Does a Foreign Direct Investment Promote Development?, Institute of International Economics, Washington DC, May 2005.
- “Is Wealthier Really Healthier?” Foreign Policy, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington DC, March/April 2005.
- “Current issues in development assistance to Sub-Saharan Africa”, Sub-Saharan Africa Regional Forecast, Economist Intelligence Unit, London, February 2005.
- “Africa and the Battle over Agricultural Protectionism” (PDF, 329.86KB), with Alicia Bannon, World Policy Journal, New York, Vol. XXI, No. 2, Summer 2004.
- “Irrational Exuberance or Financial Foresight? The Political Logic of Stock Markets in Africa”, in Sam Mensah & Todd Moss (eds), African Emerging Markets: Contemporary Issues, Volume II, African Capital Markets Forum, Accra, 2004.
- “Stock Markets in Africa: Emerging Lions or White Elephants?” with Charles Kenny, World Development, Vol. 26, No. 5, May 1998.
- “Africa Policy Adrift,” with David Gordon, Mediterranean Quarterly, Vol. 7, No. 3, Summer 1996.
- “US Policy and Democratisation in Africa: The Limits of Liberal Universalism,” The Journal of Modern African Studies, Vol. 33, No. 2, June 1995.
More From Todd Moss
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee recently took an interest in one key form of foreign aid—US economic assistance—convening a hearing to investigate the topic. We had high hopes going in and were pleased to hear all three of the hearing’s witnesses—Jeffrey Herbst, Alicia Phillips Mandaville, and CGD’s Todd Moss—champion the use of rigorous analysis, evaluation, and selectivity in aid to promote economic opportunity in developing countries.
On July 7, CGD chief operating officer and senior fellow Todd Moss testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at a hearing titled “An Assessment of US Economic Assistance.” Moss’s remarks emphasized the role development finance in promoting market solutions to poverty and insecurity.
With election-year events crowding out the legislative calendar, there’s only so many more opportunities for the Senate to show its commitment to development and its interest in improving US development policy. Legislators still have a week and a half in town, and we were encouraged to see the Senate Foreign Relations Committee fit in an important hearing on the role of US foreign aid in spurring economic growth.
One of the nearest real-world examples of Oil-to-Cash is Alaska, which has paid an annual dividend to every state resident since 1982. One of the presumptive lessons drawn from Alaska’s experience has been that once a dividend was in place, political forces aligned to protect it from politicians. Yet last week, Alaska Governor Bill Walker announced the first-ever cut to the Alaska Permanent Fund dividend.
Testimony on US Sanctions Policy in sub-Saharan Africa. CGD chief operating officer and senior fellow Todd Moss testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health at a hearing examining the utility of sanctions as an instrument for achieving US policy objectives in Africa.
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
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.
America’s development finance agency is constantly being pulled in three directions.
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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.
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.
Africa receives only a tiny fraction of global investments in emerging markets. But the problem is not that fund managers are scared away by a seemingly steady stream of bad news out of Africa, nor is a general marketing of Africa to global investors the solution. Instead the authors of this new CGD working paper find that the small size of African markets and low levels of liquidity are a binding deterrent for foreign institutional investors. Drawing on firm surveys to explore why African firms remain small, the authors offer practical recommendations for increasing portfolio investment in Africa. Learn more
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.
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?
History was made in Zimbabwe this week as Robert Mugabe finally agreed to resign the presidency after almost four decades in power. How the country will be governed by new leadership is still very much unknown—yet it is not too early for the international community to start considering how it can offer help to rebuild Zimbabwe’s economy for the benefit of its people. Todd Moss, CGD senior fellow and longtime Zimbabwe watcher, shares specific things that donor governments and international institutions can do.
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.
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