W. Gyude Moore

Distinguished Fellow at the Energy for Growth Hub

W. Gyude Moore is Liberia’s former minister of public works. He is a non-resident fellow at the Center for Global Development in Washington, DC.

How energy costs will impact Africa’s exports

Africa’s exporters are discovering that the winners will be those who can deliver faster, cheaper, and more reliably — and energy costs will play a key role.

A worker sorts avocados for export at the Sunripe fresh fruits exporters factory in Kenya June 4, 2026.

Thomas Mukoya/Reuters

Africa’s aid dependency was never Washington’s to fix

The end of USAID exposes a harder truth: decades of resource wealth never built the institutions aid was covering for.

Women from different Internally Displaced Persons camps look on as grains are offloaded from a truck into an open field.

Sodiq Adelakun/Reuters

How China forced Europe to reconsider Africa’s industrialization

As Europe seeks alternatives to Chinese manufacturing dominance, Africa has a chance to renegotiate its place in the global economy.

A worker at Dynamic Fluid Control, one of Africa’s largest valve manufacturers that exports valves at the company’s facility in Benoni, east of Johannesburg, South Africa, July 28, 2025.

Siphiwe Sibeko/Reuters

The energy trap at the heart of Africa’s stalled industrialization

How does the continent get out of a self-reinforcing cycle of low energy and low productivity?

Pylons carry electricity from South African power utility Eskom’s Koeberg nuclear plant near Cape Town on Nov. 28, 2015.

Mike Hutchings/Reuters

Africa’s top bank has a fresh chance to bet on nuclear

The AfDB’s longheld rationale to avoid financing nuclear energy’s high costs is increasingly outdated.

Signs prohibit entry to South Africa’s Koeberg nuclear power plant near Cape Town.

Mike Hutchings/Reuters

The Afro-European century: Betting on a shared future

The continent with the most to gain from Africa’s rise is Europe — but only if it acts accordingly.

The Arcadia Lithium mining site in Goromonzi, Zimbabwe.

A lithium mining site in Zimbabwe. Tafadzwa Ufumeli/Getty Images.

Analysis: The challenge with Trump’s ‘trade, not aid’ African strategy

African governments are keen to reframe their relationship with the US around trade but it won’t be straightforward for either side.

How to reform Africa’s top development bank

A month ahead of AfDB elections for a new president, an analyst writes about how he would sharpen the institution’s focus.

Analysis: The risk of outsourcing Africa’s ambition

Africa must not “outsource its ambition” to external powers, the former Liberian Minister of Public Works W. Gyude Moore argues in a new Semafor column.