Todd Moss testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Multilateral International Development, Multilateral Institutions, and International Economic, Energy, and Environmental Policy at a hearing titled “Energy and International Development” on November 1, 2017. During his appearance before the Committee, Todd detailed how US efforts to expand meaningful—modern—energy access in sub-Saharan Africa serve US interests and offered recommendations for strengthening Power Africa.
From the testimony:
“Why should the U.S. even care about Africa’s unmet energy demand? The economic upside is tremendous. Data show very clearly that lack of power for African businesses is among the very top constraints to economic growth. Resolving Africa’s power gap would help to unleash the massive consumer and investment potential of a continent that is already home to more than a billion people and is bursting with creative and entrepreneurial talent.
“Conversely, the security downside of failure is frightening. Power is absolutely essential to creating the tens of millions of new jobs that Africa needs every year. There is no scenario where Africa is stable and thriving without a rapid expansion of the power sector. It’s not too strong to say that the continent will either become a source of new economic dynamism or a source of instability and threats—and that electricity will be one of the driving determinants.”
