As part of our engagement with emerging African partners in addressing the challenge of climate change, the U.S. Department of State will sponsor Apps4Africa: Climate Challenge, a public diplomacy program comprised of three African regional competitions...

As international borders become more porous, nations must use soft power to build networks and institutions to respond to shared threats. In this sense, power becomes a positive-sum game. It is no longer sufficient to think exclusively of wielding power over others. We must instead think of using power to accomplish goals with others.

Communicating climate change presents us with a fundamental challenge. Climate change threatens all countries on Earth, regardless of their degree of development. However, telling the story of climate change, its causes and effects, and the ways in which we can contribute in the fight against it, remains a difficult task for any party involved, including the scientific community, governments, the media or nongovernmental organizations.

Policymakers need better information about the regional impact of climate change on water supplies, and on ways of adapting to it. For centuries, food production — and thus social development — has depended heavily on access to the water needed to grow crops or rear livestock.

For nations to understand the effects that climate change will have on their locality, it is essential to gather local data into an internationally coordinated database, the meeting, organised by the UK's Meteorological Office, agreed.

Scientific cooperation between Islamic countries has a lacklustre record, marked by a shortage of resources and a lack of political will for investment. The few countries that have invested heavily in recent years — including Iran, Pakistan, Qatar and Saudi Arabia — have chosen to work instead with scientifically advanced countries in North–South collaborations that offer more obvious benefits than partnerships among themselves.