Some of Africa's best-known musicians are working together to fight famine...Africans Act 4 Africa, launched today, aims to put pressure on African governments to fund relief for a crisis on their own turf. The group’s organizers hope to raise awareness through social media and media coverage, prompting leaders to step up to help the 12 million Kenyans, Somalis, and Ethiopians urgently needing food aid.

Over the weekend, Dr. Jill Biden led a delegation to Kenya to view firsthand the situation on the ground. Dr. Biden wanted to do this trip to highlight the crisis in the Horn of Africa and help mobilize both an American response, but also a global response to a crisis that is acute but to also underscore the fact that there is a lot we can do about it; that we can get assistance to people...

Dame Vivienne Westwood has teamed up with Yoox.com and the United Nations Agency to provide much-needed ethical employment for the people of Nairobi. Her Ethical Fashion Africa Collection for the e-tailer comprises handbags and totes created with from all sorts of refuse, from flip flops to old tent fabric, and transformed into covetable accessories by impoverished people in Kenya, through fair labour conditions.

Watching the wife of the US vice-president touring the world's biggest refugee camp for famine-hit Somalis was a scrum of television cameramen, international reporters and Washington staffers thumbing their BlackBerrys. US officials privately agreed that the main thrust of the visit was to get the story onto American television channels, which have been slower to report on the crisis than in other countries.

...Nigeria should use cultural diplomacy as a means of leading the way in projecting all that is good in us and Africa. By our share size, we should be able to use our arts, music, literature and drama to project our culture and emphasise the uniqueness of African culture.

I had the privilege of seeing CNN hero Doc Henley speak at the National Speakers Association Influence ’11 event on Monday...A former bartender, Doc began his first fundraiser to help provide water to the people of Darfur after reading a statistic that moved him deeply...

CPD Director Philip Seib was interviewed on PRI's The World this week about the power of media coverage to make the public act upon current issues.