Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has appointed a Berea College graduate, William Gyude Moore, as one of her cabinet-level ministers. Moore will head his country’s Public Works Ministry which operates infrastructure programs with the largest allotment in the Liberian national budget.
Moore, a native of Maryland County, in the southeastern-most cape of Liberia, came to Berea College in 2002 to obtain his Bachelor’s degree. After graduation, he worked with Bread for the World and as an Oxfam America CHANGE leader before earning his graduate degree from Georgetown University.
For the past two years, Moore has served as Deputy Chief of Staff/Head of the Program Delivery Unit in the Executive Office of the President. From 2009 until 2012, he was Senior Aide in the Office of the President.
In recent months Moore has been one of the president’s strongest advocates and key advisors, particularly regarding the Ebola crisis. In an impassioned open letter to world leaders, Moore appealed for urgent help to aid those suffering from Ebola in Monrovia, stating, “at the current rate of infections, only governments like yours have the resources and assets to deploy at the pace and scale required to arrest the spread.
“Branches of your military and civilian institutions already have the expertise in dealing with biohazards, infectious diseases and chemical agents. They already understand appropriate infection control protocols and we saw these assets deployed in Aceh after the tsunami and in Haiti after the earthquake. It is in appreciation of the difference in kind of disaster, that we are requesting assistance from units with expertise in managing biohazards.”
Moore has addressed the Ebola crisis in numerous articles published in the U.S. and African nations, and in an interview on National Public Radio.
