The government of North Korea has rightfully gained a reputation in the West for isolation and obstinacy, but its diplomatic ventures in Africa have poised it to be significantly more influential on that continent than potentially anywhere else. 

Bob Geldof’s Live Aid pioneered a new wave of stars’ involvement in the developing world that has produced mixed results. [...] Yet, as American journalist David Rieff has noted, Live Aid’s donations to NGOs such as Oxfam and Save the Children also facilitated the displacement of 600,000 people by the autocratic Mengistu regime, resulting in an estimated 100,000 deaths.

There is only as much traditional diplomacy of state-to-state exchanges can do. The reality of contemporary times is that non-state actors have become increasingly potent agents of diplomacy engaged directly or indirectly by states in pursuit of their foreign policy interests.

Britain’s foreign aid budget must be used to “discourage mass migration”, the Defence Secretary has said. Michael Fallon said that foreign aid spending “should be used” to help prevent conflicts breaking out in African countries in order to prevent refugees fleeing to Europe. He said that it would stop the UK military having to “fish people out of the Mediterranean” when they try to escape from their home countries.

Joseph Nye is a University Distinguished Service Professor at Harvard University. He is also the former Dean of the John F Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, the Assistant Secretary of Defense under the Clinton administration from 1994-1995, and a current member of the Foreign Affairs Policy Board. He is the author of many books, most recently Is the American Century Over?

Following a speech at the University of Oxford in early June, he spoke with Samuel Ramani. That interview follows.

The post Ebola epoch presents an challenge for the three most affected countries such as Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea to refocus their diplomacy and put their diplomats to work, as these countries especially Liberia seeks international partners as the country emerges from an idle and desperate economic situation which has been paralysed due to the scourge.

Overseas aid was cut from $5.03 billion in 2014-15, to $4.05 billion in 2015-16, a reduction of around 20 per cent. Further cuts are scheduled to follow until 2017-18, by which time Australia's aid budget relative to gross national income will have sunk to 0.21 percent, its lowest level since overseas assistance was formalised in the post-war period. It will also be substantially below what Australia's more prosperous OECD partners allocate.

More than a change in terminology is needed to challenge the view that if you don’t pay you owe unquestioning gratitude. [...] For the billions of the poorest people around the world who rely on philanthropic aid to meet even basic needs, as the saying goes, “beggars can’t be choosers”. But why shouldn’t philanthropic programmes abide by the same consumer rights rules expected of a traditional business selling soap or toothpaste?