Morocco lost its semifinal World Cup soccer match to France last year. The game was a reminder that soccer is thoroughly globalized; France’s hero Kylian Mbappé, the son of a Cameroonian father and an Algerian mother, is just one of many second-generation players from Africa playing in Europe’s premier leagues and on the top European national teams.
Excitement in the Arab and African community about how far Morocco’s team got in the tournament pointed to something deeper as well. More than 60 years after Morocco became independent, its national team was seen (implicitly if not explicitly) by citizens of onetime colonies as a welcome and exciting sign of a world that is finally being “decolonized.” Morocco’s success hinted at a future in which it would be no surprise to see Morocco or Côte d’Ivoire beat their onetime colonizer France on the way to an African country winning a World Cup.
But what can be said of football cannot be said of the development research community — a laggard, ironically, in the “decolonization” of top research on development.
About the authors
Nancy Birdsall
Nancy Birdsall is president emeritus and a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development, which she co-founded in 2001. Prior to launching the center, Birdsall served for 14 years in research, policy, and management roles at the World Bank, and was executive vice-president of the Inter-American Development Bank.
W. Gyude Moore
W. Gyude Moore is a senior policy fellow at the Center for Global Development. He previously served as Liberia’s minister of public works, deputy chief of staff to former President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, and head of the president’s delivery unit. Moore researches governance, infrastructure financing, and Africa’s response to the changing landscape of external actors.
Brian Webster
Brian Webster is a research assistant with the Center for Global Development. He supports the work of Nancy Birdsall, senior fellow emeritus Alan Gelb, and various other experts. He previously worked as a research assistant with Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies where he earned a Master of Arts in International Relations.
