Originally published in the Financial Times, October 25, 2024.

Lee Harris’ recent article for the Financial Times reports on the IMF and World Bank meetings and the Bank’s nuclear energy finance ban, and quotes Todd Moss and Hub Advisor Charles Mensa.

Harris cites the Hub’s nuclear trust fund proposal as a possible step forward:

“‘The Bank keeps saying they don’t have the expertise. That’s not a valid excuse. The bank does all sorts of financing where they don’t have expertise — they bring in consultants,’ said DJ Nordquist, who represented the US on the World Bank’s board of directors during the Trump administration.

[DJ] Nordquist supports a proposal for a ‘trust fund’ at the World Bank that would develop internal staff capacity to evaluate nuclear energy as part of client countries’ power mix. It could also enable the Bank to co-ordinate on the issue with agencies such as the US Development Finance Corporation.

The trust fund was proposed by Todd Moss, who led Africa strategy at the US state department from 2007 to 2008 and now runs a think-tank promoting energy to support economic growth in developing nations.

Currently, the Bank is being uncharacteristically modest on its ability to offer advice, Moss told me. ‘The World Bank is in every nook and cranny of Ghana’s budget and infrastructure planning. But they have nothing to say about nuclear, and they can’t advise the Ghanaians on nuclear because they’ve decided to stick their head in the sand.'”

Harris quoted Charles Mensa on the safety and appeal of small modular reactors:

“‘The old idea about nuclear was that it was very dangerous. The word ‘nuclear’ itself scared people,’ Mensa, who now runs an Accra-based think-tank, told me. ‘But times have changed.’

Mensa argued that the US and other developed countries have unfairly denied developing countries crucial energy, even as they continue to rely on them at home. For example, he pointed out, the US refused to sign a pact to end coal use at a 2021 UN climate summit in Glasgow, even as the White House urged developing countries to end their use of the hydrocarbon, and as financing for coal has become harder for Ghana to access.

Now, he said, ‘the developed communities are building nuclear but they tell us that we cannot. Well, we need energy for our industrial development. Otherwise, we remain poor, and go to them to beg for aid.’

[…]

Mensa, of Ghana, added that ‘if the World Bank keeps holding the lid on financing from the western countries, it is very likely that the Russians or Chinese will make deals’ with more African countries for nuclear power.

Asked if he was concerned about objections to those countries’ involvement in African energy supply, Mensa said that ‘the colour of the cat doesn’t matter so long as it catches the mouse.'”