Looking back over 50 years of the Union, 'cultural diplomacy' has a greater chance of creating understanding between peoples than what I will call for the purposes of this article, 'conventional diplomacy'. As such, over the next 50 years, we should throw down the challenge to the AU to put cultural diplomacy at the top of its agenda.

US President Barack Obama will visit Senegal, South Africa and Tanzania in June, the White House has said. Mr Obama is expected to meet lawmakers as well as business and civil society leaders and youth on his trip.

The government is considering posting dedicated cultural attaches at South Africa's missions abroad, Arts and Culture Minister Paul Mashatile said on Thursday. “Culture has now become the soft power of nations,” Mashatile said in his budget vote speech in the National Assembly, before detailing cultural exchanges with France and Britain.

While highlighting the educational opportunities in India, he announced that in 2012, over 1,200 Nigerians studied there, while he expressed hope for an increase. According to him, “Nigerian stakeholders are discovering the attractiveness of Indian education.

An exchange programme targeted at examining the role that journalists play in the society and the challenges they face while doing their jobs tagged Spring 2013 Professional Fellows Congress opens Wednesday in Washington, D.C., United States of America with 10 journalists from four countries in Africa – Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria and Uganda – participating.

From hosting the world's top emerging powers to enforcing the Rwanda/DRC peace agreement and monitoring elections in Zimbabwe, South Africa is looking good on the world stage. But critics from within say Pretoria's diplomacy has lost its way. Gathered in the grand Oliver Tambo Building in Pretoria, South Africa's top diplomats were not expecting fireworks when President Jacob Zuma gave his annual pep talk on 11 April.

Media freedom is the moral equivalent of oxygen. It is how any free, healthy, vibrant and functioning society breathes, and it is essential to building civil societies. That applies to everything we say in public squares or type on our keyboards online.

Projects funded by the Chinese include gyms and stadiums in Ghana, a hospital in Zambia and an opera house in Algeria. We also look at a Chinese footwear manufacturer's plans to create a global hub for the shoe industry in Ethiopia, and discuss reaction in China to the government's huge investments in Africa. Browse it all on our series page.