The continuous engagement through economic diplomacy helps a country like Liberia in advancing its economic interests and equally and importantly, those of its partners. (...) Economic diplomacy pools skill personnel in government and the private sector to understand and negotiate trade, investment and economic issues from the national development perspective of a country’s strength, limitations, opportunities and threats.

Ebola is wrecking years of health and education work in Sierra Leone and Liberia following their civil wars, forcing many charity groups to suspend operations or re-direct them to fighting the epidemic.

 Enduring a 15 kilometer walk to the nearest clinic will soon be part of the past for villagers in Kalaf, Djibouti. Now, only a minute away from the village stands a maternity clinic completed on Dec. 22, 2014. 

A survey of African stakeholders carried out in 40 African countries by the OECD for the African Economic Outlook 2011 found that emerging partners such as China were ranked as having a comparative advantage for cooperation in infrastructure, innovation, and even health compared with Africa’s traditional bilateral and multilateral partners.

A public diplomacy team of Ethiopia will be dispatched to Cairo early next week to "take messages of friendship to the Egyptian people," said the Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Some of these emerging diplomatic trends seem to have the potential to solve real problems, but can they really guarantee results or are they diplomatic fads that will go out of style as soon as the diplomatic community is faced with more complex challenges?

Nelson Mandela died one year ago today, but his legacy lives on. He changed the image of South Africa from that of a country despised for its atrocities to a “Rainbow Nation” (Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s term) that protects and promotes human rights and democratic values.

It is always difficult to calculate the impact of U.S. domestic events on international audiences. But if experience is any guide, news travels fast, and people from Soweto, South Africa to Seoul are watching events in Ferguson, Mo.; Staten Island, N.Y.; and around the country as protests unfold over police shootings. In short, I would say, "Houston, we have a problem."