A Hungarian human rights lawyer and journalist who published a controversial series of portraits transposing her own face on to those of African women has been forced to remove her work after sparking widespread anger online […] But the photographs were taken down today after a series of satirical articles and angry blogs drew attention to the work described as offensive, patronizing and narcissistic.

From the mundane to the bizarre, everything seemed to include a hashtag in global development this year.

Nigeria is falling in love with Star Wars. There are two reasons. There's a growing nerd culture in the country — young people who love science fiction and see it as a way to imagine our own futures as something better than our present […] The other reason: John Boyega, […] son of Nigerians who settled in Britain.

The Let Girls Learn initiative will seek to reduce economic and cultural barriers — such as gender-based violence or living far from school — that keep millions of adolescent girls from getting an education. As part of the initiative, the State Department will work in several countries—including Malawi and Tanzania—to empower adolescent girls and ensure they’re able to attend school.

It's this youthful energy that is fueling the museum's exhibit "Making Africa — A Continent of Contemporary Design" (through February 21, 2016), which showcases 120 artists and designers. Although there's no way to fully capture the essence of all 54 countries, Joos says, she considers this a "starting point to discuss the continent in another perspective." Or rather, many perspectives — for two years leading up to the exhibit, the museum conducted meetings in cities all over Africa to ask questions like, "What is African design?"

Since 2012, the US government has put more than $US700 million...into supporting gay rights groups and causes globally. America's money and public diplomacy have opened conversations and opportunities in societies where the subject was taboo just a few years ago. But they have also made gay men and lesbians more visible - and more vulnerable to harassment and violence....

Recently, we analyzed the mediated public diplomacy efforts of Angola in the United States. To facilitate this analysis, we content analyzed American news coverage (by examining The Wall Street Journal and USA Today) from 2008 to 2015, as well as press releases from the Angolan embassy website, dating back to 2011. While the initial goal was to examine how CPD fellow Dr. Jami Fullerton’s Model of Country Concept might apply to a developing African nation, our findings also offered insights and suggestions for CPD’s research initiatives relating to Global Youth and Evaluation.