Seeing Africa as Business Partner, Not Charity: Todd Moss and Scott Morris on Obama’s Trip to Africa

Summary

The CGD Podcast – Episode Summary

Title: Seeing Africa as Business Partner, Not Charity: Todd Moss and Scott Morris on Obama’s Trip to Africa

Date: June 25, 2013
Host: Lawrence MacDonald (Center for Global Development)
Guests: Todd Moss (Senior Fellow and Vice President, CGD; former Deputy Assistant Secretary, State Department); Scott Morris (Visiting Policy Fellow, CGD; former Deputy Assistant Secretary, Treasury)

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Episode Overview

This episode discusses the significance of President Obama’s 2013 trip to Africa and the shifting paradigm of U.S.–Africa relations. Host Lawrence MacDonald and development experts Todd Moss and Scott Morris examine past and potential U.S. engagement on the continent, the opportunities for partnership, and the importance of moving beyond an aid-based relationship to one grounded in trade, investment, and economic collaboration. The conversation highlights key policy opportunities for the Obama administration, the importance of African agency, and the regional context of the president’s visit.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Expectations for Obama’s Africa Policy

• Todd Moss reflects on high hopes in both Africa and the U.S.:

  “There were high expectations that he was going to pay more attention to Africa than previous American presidents… this trip is a very important moment for him to stamp on the second term that Africa is important, and that the administration is serious about building partnerships with our African allies.” (02:00)

• Obama’s first-term engagement was viewed as “somewhat passive” with minimal new policy initiatives or personal involvement, in contrast to Bush-era programs (e.g., PEPFAR, MCC).

2. Constraints & Realities of U.S. Engagement

• Scott Morris points out budgetary constraints, limiting the potential for "big new pots of money":

  “In the context of where we are with our budgets today, it can't be about big new pots of money. It's really about what we do with what we already have.” (04:22)

• Emphasis is on deploying existing tools and forging “real partnerships, not donor-client relationships.”

3. Should Africa Just Be Left Alone?

• MacDonald raises a provocative question about the downsides of external involvement (militarization, self-interest):

  “Every time we get involved, I think we tend to muck things up… Maybe the less we're involved, the better off Africa is.” (06:25)

• Moss acknowledges mixed results from outside intervention but stresses mutual interest and strong demand among African leaders for robust U.S. partnership:

  “Most African leaders… actually seek very strong, robust relationships with the United States. And that would be in our interest as well.” (07:09)

• Both guests agree U.S. engagement, if rooted in mutual benefit and respect, can be constructive.

4. Obama’s 2013 Africa Trip: Countries and Symbolism

• Scott Morris outlines the itinerary: Senegal (West), South Africa (South), Tanzania (East) – each exemplifying geographic diversity, stable governance, and economic progress (09:55).
• The trip’s timing is strategic, with Obama’s presence itself symbolically significant:

  Moss: “He’s still widely regarded as a hero in many parts of the continent… What he probably will not do is come with big, multibillion-dollar investment packages. But they will be looking to see what kinds of investment… might be announced.”* (11:59)

• The upcoming African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) summit is positioned as a follow-on opportunity.

5. Six Cost-Neutral Policy Recommendations for Strengthening U.S.–Africa Partnerships (Todd Moss’s List)

a. Initiate Trade Negotiations: FTA or Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs)

• Proposes launching talks for a free trade area or new BITs to signal serious economic partnership:

  “It would seem that some counterbalance here would be… let's start dialogue on either a free trade agreement with a couple of key countries, possibly the East African Community...” (13:56)

• Critique that USTR’s focus on wealthy regions (EU) is “out of kilter” with global growth dynamics.

b. Strengthen OPIC (Overseas Private Investment Corporation)

• Moss champions OPIC as a highly effective but underutilized development finance tool:

  “OPIC is the US Government's development finance institution… it provides political risk insurance… debt capital… help catalyze and spur private investment in the developing world.” (15:49) “Every year OPIC… earns $200–$250 million a year, which it then pays back to the U.S. treasury… Killing it would not help the deficit. It would worsen the deficit.” (16:28)

• Suggests “modest tweaks” to remove regulatory barriers and boost OPIC’s capacity in Africa, yielding more U.S. investment and returns to the Treasury.

c. Support for African Development Bank (AfDB)

• Scott Morris explains AfDB’s unique role as an African-led, infrastructure-focused MDB:

  “It is of the continent… has credibility and a track record… very active in things like the power sector, water sector, things that require large amounts of public money…” (19:04)

• Recommends robust U.S. support for the upcoming AfDB replenishment, tying this funding to U.S. goals and African development needs (20:43).

d. Ambitious Electricity Access Initiative (“Power Deliverable”)

• Moss spotlights severe electricity shortfalls in Africa (7/10 Africans lack access; in Tanzania, the figure is 85%) (23:32).
• Critiques of donor focus on social services instead of infrastructure; highlights innovative off-grid solutions but underscores cost challenges (24:11).
• Proposes using existing U.S. agency tools — USAID, Treasury, TDA, and most of all OPIC — to address power sector needs, but calls for loosening restrictions (especially carbon caps) to enable OPIC participation in gas projects, as with Tanzania’s natural gas find (25:42).

  “Under current rules, probably [OPIC] would be barred from getting involved at all. So the likely option is that a Chinese firm will be asked to come in and build it.” (25:42)

e. Highlighting Energy Poverty as a Health and Development Crisis

• Moss links lack of electricity to critical health and economic outcomes:

  “Electricity is critical to health and education… three and a half million global premature deaths last year from indoor air pollution related to burning biomass… almost a million of those people were in Africa.” (27:44)

• References work of CGD colleagues on persistent constraints power shortages impose on business and development.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On expectations vs. reality for Obama’s Africa policy:
  “He had one visit to Africa, less than 24 hours to Ghana… not really shown a lot of personal attention to the continent of Africa, and his administration has been somewhat passive…” – Todd Moss (02:00)

• On new approaches vs. new money:
  “It can't be about big new pots of money. It's really about what we do with what we already have.” – Scott Morris (04:22)

• On U.S.–Africa engagement and agency:
  “Most African leaders… actually seek very strong, robust relationships with the United States. And that would be in our interest as well.” – Todd Moss (07:09)

• On OPIC’s effectiveness and constraints:
  “OPIC has a lot of regulatory and other constraints on it that make it not perform at the level that it could… we've really tied one arm behind OPEC's back to operate.” – Todd Moss (16:35)

• On urgency of power access:
  “7 out of 10 Africans have no electricity. This just—it's jaw dropping.” – Lawrence MacDonald (23:32)

• On health impact of energy poverty:
  “Three and a half million global premature deaths last year from indoor air pollution related to burning biomass…” – Todd Moss (27:44)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Introduction & Backgrounds: 00:15–01:24
• Obama’s Attention to Africa & First-Term Assessment: 02:00–04:47
• Constraints on U.S. Policy (Aid vs. Partnership): 04:47–06:25
• The Merits and Dangers of U.S. Involvement: 06:25–08:45
• Countries on Obama's Itinerary & Symbolic Value: 09:55–11:49
• Trade Initiatives & Recommendations: 13:07–15:19
• OPIC as a Tool for Investment: 15:19–17:56
• African Development Bank, U.S. Role: 19:04–22:07
• Power Deliverable & Electricity Access: 23:05–27:44
• Health/Economic Impact of Energy Poverty: 27:44–28:50

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Conclusion

The episode frames Obama’s 2013 Africa trip as an opportunity to recast the U.S.–Africa relationship from one of aid dependency to true economic partnership, grounded in trade, investment, and African leadership. Moss and Morris urge creative use of existing U.S. tools, U.S. support for African-led institutions, and a focus on transformative challenges like energy poverty. The discussion is candid about fiscal constraints and political realities, but notably optimistic about the potential for mutually beneficial U.S.–Africa engagement.

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Transcript

[A]

Welcome to the Global Prosperity Wonk cast. I'm Lawrence MacDonald and I'm pleased to have with me in the studio today Scott Morris. He's a visiting policy fellow here at the center for Global Development, and Todd Moss, senior fellow and Vice President. Scott and Todd, welcome to the show. I've got the dueling DAs with me today in Washington speak. The DAs is the deputy Assistant secretary. Scott, you were a deputy assistant secretary in the treasury department during the first Obama administration's term, responsible for U.S. engagement with the World bank, the Inter American Development bank and various multilateral institutions. And Todd, you were a DAs in the state Department responsible for a big chunk of Africa during the second term of Bush 2. So I've got people here from parties that outside the halls of center for Global Development might not even shake hands with each other, but I have them sitting beside each other in the studio. I'm a little concerned that they're actually going to agree about everything, but I'll see if I can find some places, places where they might disagree.

[B]

We've got a little bipartisan and interagency harmony here.

[C]

That's right.

[A]

Well, let's not hope it's so harmful. Let's not hope it's so harmonious that we put our listeners to sleep. Todd, you were saying to me that this is President Obama's second trip to the continent. I think obviously there was huge excitement in Africa as there was in the African American community here, that there was somebody of African heritage. And not only that, but that his father was born in Kenya. So he really is a child of the continent in some ways. And I think there were high expectations that he was going to pay more attention to Africa than previous American presidents. How's that worked out?

[B]

Yeah, I think, look, this trip is a chance to kind of redeem the first term. He had one visit to Africa less than 24 hours to Ghana. He announced a couple of big initiatives. They either never really got started or just barely got started. And I think he has not really shown a lot of personal attention to the continent of Africa, and his administration has been somewhat passive in a number of areas. In stark contrast, I sound like I'm self promoting the Bush administration, but certainly President Bush and that administration had, I think, a surprising level of attention on Africa. And I think there was a bit of disappointment, certainly from the African diplomatic and political communities. But this trip is a very important moment for him to stamp on the second term that Africa is important and that the administration is serious about building partnerships with our African allies.

[A]

Scott, I'M struck by a parallel here in the domestic context where some critics of the president would say he hasn't paid enough attention to African American issues and people thought he was going to be a black president and he would stand up for black people. And I think, although obviously African Americans continue to be very excited and supportive of his presidency, I think there's a little sense that he maybe didn't want to be typecast as caring more about African Americans than about other issues. And I wonder if internationally, too, that maybe he was said, you know, I'm the president of the United States and I've got to worry about North Korea and I've got to worry about Latin America, and I've got a lot of things that I'm concerned about. And. And I'm not going to be typecast as somebody who's specially interested in Africa. Is that what's going on here?

[C]

I don't know that I want to read his personal intentions on that. I do. It may be that there's a little bit of holding him to a different standard for the reasons that you described. I think when it comes to Africa, it's also, it's just a reality that to the degree a lot of the relationships with those countries are defined by our foreign assistance, we have been in a period of very constrained public finance in this country, and it makes it hard to think about rolling out new initiatives which are sort of the typical, the hallmark of how any administration establishes.

[A]

Well, that's certainly how the Bush administration did it. I mean, very interested in Africa, but a lot of that was. So I think in the pepfar mca.

[C]

In the context of where we are with our budgets today, it can't be about big new pots of money. It's really about what we do with what we already have. And I think that's the first term was really about exploring new ways to engage. The Partnership for Growth was really the signature initiative, which included two countries, one of which he's visiting Tanzania.

[A]

Todd, your list that we're going to come to in a little bit of, I think it's six suggestions for initiatives that the president could announce while he's in Africa. You were very careful to select those that wouldn't cost any new money. And I know you've been a big advocate for things that don't cost new money. It is the case that the Bush administration's attention to Africa was very much in the foreign assistance bucket. Do you think that's fair or is there something I'm missing here?

[B]

Look, there were some very large new initiatives from the Bush administration. Millennium Challenge Corporation was launched. Pepfar, the big AIDS program, very, very large AIDS program, Malaria program. Those were clearly new spending items. But, you know, the effort on diplomatic relationships, on security partnerships, on conflict resolution, that doesn't cost a lot of money. And those were also important, I think, important legacies of the previous administration. And so I think Scott's right. You know, we shouldn't expect, given the budget situation, that there's going to be billions and billions of dollars of new money. But really, the U.S. government already, just to preview a couple of the ideas I put out, has a lot of existing tools that could be better deployed. And in particular, I think at this time where Africa is doing very well economically and starting to feel a lot more confident in the international arena, they don't actually want big aid packages. They actually want what everybody else wants, which is trade and investment and to be treated like a normal business partner. And that's the framing for hopefully for this trip as well.

[A]

I want to come to those ideas very quickly, but I have, before we go to break, one further question that we're not otherwise going to touch on here, and that is, you know, you make the case, Todd. I think very persuasively for greater US Involvement in Africa. But I'm wondering from the standpoint of Africa, isn't it not better off just to be left alone? I can see why it's in the United States interest to be a good partner to Africa, but every time we get involved, I think we tend to muck things up. And I'm thinking in particular something, you know, a lot more about than I do about the militarization and the involvement in the northwestern part of Africa and the tendency to see everything through a security lens. Maybe the less we're involved, unless we think about Africa, the the better off Africa is.

[B]

Well, you know, I think Africa's record of engaging with the outside world has been pretty mixed. You know, I don't think Soviet intervention in Africa was particularly helpful. American intervention hasn't always been, hasn't always been positive. And there are, there is some tendency among parts of the US Government to see, to see problems through a military or security lens. Clearly, the US Engagement in the world is partly driven by our own, in large part driven by our own national security needs. That is going to be seen through the terrorism lens. I think that's probably unavoidable. But I actually think that building partnerships, real partnerships, not donor client relationships, but real partnerships with African allies based on mutual security and economic interests and is really in everybody's, is in everybody's best interest. And I think that most African leaders, almost all of them actually seek very strong, robust relationships with the United States. And that would be in our interest as well.

[A]

Scott, I see you nodding your head. Do you want to pick any bones with Todd on this or is this.

[C]

No, I agree with that and I think I would. And just to disagree with what's behind the question, look, if Africa is going to succeed seed they're going to be integrated into the global economy, the global community. And I think any fair reading of who Africans see as the constructive players globally, you know, the United States is there and I think historically there are examples of less than constructive actors and I wouldn't rank us high on that list.

[A]

Thanks very much. We'll take a break. When we come back, I want to turn to the president's trip to Africa and the six recommendations that Todd has put forward for no cost initiatives that could strengthen the US Involvement in Africa to the benefit of both the United States and the people of Africa. We'll be back in a bit. Welcome back to the Global Prosperity wonkast. I'm Lawrence MacDonald. My guests today are Scott Morris. He's the former deputy assistant secretary in the U.S. treasury with responsibility for U.S. ties with the multilateral institutions. And Todd Moss, senior fellow and vice president here at the center for Global Development, who's also a DAs former Deputy Assistant secretary in the State Department responsible for West Africa. We're talking about President Obama's upcoming trip to Africa. Scott, where is he going and why?

[C]

So he's going to three Senegal, South Africa and Tanzania. The why? You know, these decisions are not lightly made. I think it's fair to say they're heavily lobbied and litigated within the government, outside of the government. But I think if you look at this list, it does make sense. Geographically, it's proportion. You have a West African country, you have South Africa and then you have an East African country. Different sized countries and economies here. All three are common in having, you know, good governance, stable democracies. And on the economic front, I think all of them showing a commitment to good economic governance. I think, you know, no matter the specific countries and the venues, it is a regional trip. So I think he will use the opportunity to bring in representatives from the region to those three countries.

[A]

Africa is huge and diverse. So it's probably an unfair question, but either one of you, are there certain things that you think Africans are going to be listening for or watching for or segments of the African American population, maybe the more sophisticated elite people will have different filters than everybody else. I imagine there's a lot of interest in the trip.

[C]

Well, yeah, I think so. I think they're probably looking for a different kind of indications of a different kind of relationship with the United States. And certainly, you know, we hear and see and read so much about the impact China has had in Sub Saharan Africa. Very much defined as an economic relationship. And I think for Africans, they're looking for, as Todd said earlier, looking for something that gets beyond the old foreign assistance relationship into how do we interact with each other as economic partners, trading partners, investment partners.

[A]

I imagine he's going to get points just for showing up and looking like an African. I mean, this is something the Chinese cannot do, is send somebody of African descent as their leader.

[B]

Yeah, look, he's still widely regarded as a hero in many parts of the continent. I'm sure he will be welcomed as a hero and rightfully so. What he probably will not be able to do, like when the Chinese premier visits, is come with big, multi, multibillion dollar investment packages. But they will be looking to see what kinds of investment, what kinds of business leaders from the United States might be coming with him, what kinds of initiatives might be announced that could lead to new business opportunities. And in a sense, it is a little bit of a setup. In August will be the annual African Growth and Opportunity Act Summit in Ethiopia, which is our annual dialogue between African countries in the US on trade and economic relationships. So I think they'll be trying to set the stage for a successful forum in Addis in a couple of weeks.

[A]

This is a good lead in to your first two recommendations. They both have to do with trade initiatives. The first is to announce the opening of meaningful negotiations on an fta, a free trade area with Africa, or a series of what you call BITs, bilateral investment treaties, I presume, with African countries. I know that among our colleagues who pay attention to trade, there's real concern that we've got this Pacific Agreement in the works and then a newly announced focus on a transatlantic agreement with Europe. We've got the failure of the Doha Round, the increasing marginalization of the World Trade Organization. If the rich and powerful are going to have all these trade pacts, what does that mean for Africa? I imagine that announcing something like an African FTA would be a pretty good counterpart to those concerns in Africa.

[B]

Yeah, Well, I don't think everybody within CGD agrees about all of this, which is one of the beauties of being here. But you know what struck me is that if we think about the most dynamic regions of the world economy, we would think about Asia, Africa, parts of Latin America, which are growing quite fast. And yet the focus we've seen for the United States trade representative with which negotiates trade agreements is on the European Union. And they've made clear that the priority is to sign a free trade agreement with the European Union. And it seems a little bit out of kilter with the way that global trends are going. Of course, Europe is the wealthiest region, but it's going in the opposite direction of these other regions. And so it would seem that some counterbalance here would be. Let's, let's start dialogue on either a free trade agreement with a couple of key countries, possibly the East African Community, which is the regional community that's furthest along. Integration would be the most likely candidate to be able to even negotiate this with the United States, or some new bilateral investment treaties, which is a pact that helps protect investors and can spur additional investment. And here I would say Nigeria is the biggest, you know, the Big Apple that we would, we would try to try to get.

[A]

Talk to me about your third idea, a stronger opec. Opec, of course, being the Overseas Private Investment Corporation. I would say it's a darling of Todd Moss's. You know, everything that could be improved in the world could be improved by opic. And, you know, I must say I'm persuaded by those arguments. But tell me what you think the president could do in particular, and maybe for the listeners who don't know, don't follow your work. Why does OPEC deserve to be so much better known? And what is the magic thing about OPEC as a government agency?

[B]

Right. Well, most people have no idea what OPIC is. They often think it's opec, the oil cartel. So it's a bad acronym. But OPIC is the US Government's development finance institution, and it provides political risk insurance for American investors going overseas. And it provides, in some cases, seed capital for projects, debt, debt capital, and some other products that finance institutions can provide that help catalyze and spur private investment in the developing world.

[A]

And my favorite line from you. And it makes money. Right?

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

We had a proposal a couple years ago from somebody saying, let's cut the budget for opec. And I just loved your rejoinder. Maybe let's not.

[B]

Right. Well, every year opec, because opec, OPOC is part of the US Government, everybody pays it back. So it earns, you know, 200, $250 million a year, which it then pays back to the U.S. treasury, it's not there as a money making machine, but it's not, you know, killing it would not help the deficit. It would worsen the deficit. And OPIC has been extremely innovative. They've been ramping up their investments in Sub Saharan Africa, over $900 million last year in new commitments. So they're doing really well. It's a small agency. I think that helps. But OPIC has a lot of regulatory and other constraints on it that make it not perform at the level that it could. And in fact, it has constraints, extra constraints that the British government, which has its development finance institution, doesn't put there. The Dutch, the French, the World bank has one, and OPEC, we've really tied one arm behind OPEC's back to operate. And so I've tried to point out a couple of pretty modest tweaks that would allow OPEC to behave like all of its peers and it could perform a lot more. It would actually probably wind up making a lot more money for the U.S. treasury. That's not the goal, but the goal would be that it could really spur a lot more American investment in the developing world.

[A]

We're going to take our second break. When we come back, Scott, I want to shift back to you because my question has to do with the African Development bank. And I know that was specifically your area of responsibility, among many other things, when you were in the Treasury. This is the Global Prosperity Wonkast from the center for Global Development. My guests today are Scott Morris and Todd Moss and we're talking about President Obama's upcoming trip to Africa. We'll be back in a moment. Welcome back to the Global Prosperity Wonkast. Scott before the break, I said I wanted to ask you about the African Development Bank. I know that all of our listeners are familiar to varying degrees with the World Bank. They probably have a notion that there's an African bank and a Latin American bank and maybe a European bank for reconstruction and development. Tell me, what does the African Development bank do and how does it relate to this Alphabet soup of other multilateral agencies?

[C]

Sure. So as you said, I mean, the African Development bank is one of many multilateral development banks. It's the regional development bank for Africa. It's unique in a couple of important and positive ways. One, it is of the continent. It was founded in Sub Saharan Africa by African countries. The US has been a shareholder and the largest non regional shareholder for many years. So the US Has a very strong interest in the institution. But as an African institution, I think it has credibility and A track record on the continent that really speaks well of it in terms of what it does. It is also unique among the MDBs in being very heavily infrastructure focused. So they all, all these institutions, because of their basic banking model, the ability to leverage their money, they do play an active role in large infrastructure projects. In contrast with what frankly the US government is able to do with the instruments it has. OPIC is really the outlier among the things that the US government brings to bear on things like on infrastructure. So the African bank is very active in things like the power sector, the water sector, things that require large amounts of public money, the ability to lend and to lend in these countries at rates that the countries can afford. And that's exactly what they do, and they do it very well.

[A]

If you were still in the US treasury, you would have been participating in an interagency process to craft the President's announcements while he's in Africa. What would you have said about the African Development Bank?

[B]

So.

[C]

I think, you know, it's interesting, without any prodding, I have no doubt that the African Development bank will come up many times on this trip because it is that important as an institution on the continent. If the President himself never raised it, it would be raised by the counterparts he meets with. What I would like to see from the President, from our government is strong commitment to fund the institution. It so happens that this year the bank is going through a replenishment exercise. So this is every three years something they do where they bring donors together to re up their financing for the grant making part of the institution. It's an important point for the African Bank. The US has an opportunity really to further increase its commitment in the last round. Three years ago when I was involved, we made a substantial increase in our commitment. I hope they can do more this time.

[A]

It's not an easy job, I suppose, for treasury to both come forward with these ideas and then if the administration agrees to carry the idea to Capitol Hill, where more money for an institution that a lot of Congressmen have never heard of is probably not an easy thing to get sign off on.

[C]

Yeah, this is an important point. I think, you know, one of the challenges we faced at treasury in making the case for the MDBs, the Multilateral Development Banks is really connecting the dots for them. And frankly, it's a challenge that we see within the administration. So even as you have all these actors preparing for the President's trip and talking about the different things that matter to Africa from an economic standpoint, investment in big infrastructure, power, water, they know that the African bank matters, but they don't realize that there's also a replenishment exercise that makes it, that makes the African development matter. This is how they get their money. I think that holds for Congress as well. So it's really important. It's an ongoing battle to connect those dots and know that, you know, in thinking about a list of deliverables for a trip like this, it can be very consequential to do something significant for this replenishment in meeting the very goals that they'll be talking about.

[A]

I want to end on what I hope is an aspirational and inspirational high point. Todd, your final recommendation, you call it Power Deliverable. An ambitious new electricity access initiative is. And as much as I've been hanging around development people and here at the center for, you know, a long time, I'm still struck by the statistic in this paragraph. 7 out of 10 Africans have no electricity. This just. It's jaw dropping.

[B]

Yeah. It is actually quite shocking. In Tanzania, where the President will be going, the figure is 85%. That means 85% of Tanzanians wake up in the morning, they don't switch on a light or go to the refrigerator. They go and either have to cut down a tree to make food or burn charcoal.

[A]

So who's responsible for that? I keep hearing that Tanzania is a donor darling. Every aid agency in the world's in there. They've been there for 20 or 30 years. Is this a problem of the foreign involvement or is this something that the Tanzanians themselves should have fixed? It's not like installing power and power grids is rocket science. This is pretty basic 50 year old technology.

[B]

Yeah. Look, the donor community has not been focused on this. They've been focused mostly on social services and delivering electricity to a dispersed rural population, especially in a place like Tanzania is tough. It's very costly in a unit cost sense. And countries have not wanted to pass the true cost of generating and transmitting electricity to their populations. You can imagine a poor rural person probably can't afford to pay the true cost of, you know, building a power station, burning the fuel, transmitting that fuel. And governments, for political reasons, haven't wanted to try to collect those. There have been some innovations. Some of the new technologies, like solar off grid technologies are promising. They're still very, very costly. Someone will have to subsidize them if the access numbers are going to go up. But you know, there are also some interesting innovations like pay as you go scratch cards, just as you would do with a mobile phone where you'd prepay your minutes, scratch off your card. You can now do that with electricity. There's still a lot of upfront costs.

[A]

So what's your plan for fixing this problem? You're saying the White House could have an ambitious new electricity access initiative? The problem has been around a long time. What would that really look like? I know you've written about this before. We'll link to it in the blog post on this wonk, gas. But give us the short summary here. What could the administration do that would cost no money and solve this very longstanding, difficult problem?

[B]

Yeah, so I wouldn't say it would cost no money. It would cost no new money. But there are tools that we have in different federal agencies. USAID has some very good technical assistance programs to help with pricing issues. The Treasury Department has good technical assistance programs to help with fiscal issues related to energy. There's an agency that is even less heard of than opic called the U.S. trade and Development Agency, the TDA. They do feasibility studies, which is the first step toward building new power plants. And then, of course, my favorite OPIC is an agency that can and does invest in the power sector. One of those constraints that I was mentioning is that they do have a cap on the carbon emissions of the OPIC portfolio, which really severely constrains OPIC's ability to get involved in any fossil fuel projects. And I mentioned Tanzania before. The rubber is going to hit the road in Tanzania. So 85% of the population has no power at all. Tanzania has had a major, major natural gas find, offshore production, probably not till 2018 or so, but the Tanzanians want to turn that gas into power. Opec, under current rules, probably would be barred from getting involved at all. So the likely option is that a Chinese firm will be asked to come in and build it or which will have much lower environmental, social and other standards than would happen if OPIC did get involved, but it's not allowed to because of the cap.

[A]

And I should say this is one of the areas where we have a variety of views in the center. I should say I don't actually have a view. This is a complex and difficult question, but I know that some of our colleagues have views that differ with yours, and we'll have to save that for a future discussion. But I really like the way that you framed it in Tanzania because if we're talking about coal in some ways, the answer is, I don't know if it's easier or not, but the climate concerns are different. Whereas with natural gas, you know, we're seeing that as the solution in our own country.

[B]

That's right.

[A]

Reducing emissions. So it's complex and difficult question in the case of Tanzania.

[B]

Yeah. I think there's also, there is an important question here when we look at, when we look at the effects of what advocates call energy poverty. It's not just that it's a luxury for people to plug in their iPads. It's actually a critical. Electricity is critical to health and education. The Global Disease Burden Study in the Lancet said that there were three and a half million global premature deaths last year from indoor air pollution related to burning biomass, which is mostly cooking. And almost a billion of those people were in Africa. So it is a public health problem, it's an education problem.

[A]

You said three and a half million.

[B]

Sorry, three, sorry. Almost a million people a year dying in Africa. Early death from a third of the global total, roughly. And it's also through work of Alan Gelb, our colleagues Alan Gelb and Vidramachandran and others, that electricity is, in most countries, the number one constraint on business growth.

[A]

Well, we'll be watching carefully to see if President Obama takes that on in one way or another during his trip. Scott Morris, Todd Moss, it's been a pleasure to have you with me on the show. Thanks very much.

[C]

Thank you.

[B]

Thank you.

[A]

This has been the Global Prosperity Wonk cast from the center for Global Development. My guest today, Senior Fellow and Vice President Todd Moss and visiting policy fellow Scott Morris, both deputy assistant secretaries in various agencies and different administrations. You can find the Wonkast online on itunes and on Stitcher. Just search for wonkcast or CGD and subscribe to hear a new interview every week. Until next time, I'm Lawrence MacDonald. Thanks for listening. Sa.