Tourism has evolved over the past decades into one of the fastest-growing sectors in the world and a transformative force in global development. More than one billion people travelled the world in 2012. Tourism represents today up to 9 percent of global GDP in direct, indirect and induced impacts), 30 percent of service exports and employs 1 in 11 people around the world.

Adeso is a humanitarian and development organization that has emerged to change the way people think about and deliver aid in Africa—that is, from within. Formerly known as Horn Relief, Adeso has expanded from one community to other parts of Somalia, South Sudan and Kenya. As a current implementing partner of US foreign aid in the Horn of Africa, Ali agreed to sit down with me to take a look at foreignassistance.gov, where USAID, MCC, and the Treasury Department released new data last month. What would she be able to find out about her own organization’s programming there?

On the morning of August 17th most of India’s economic policymakers gathered in the prime minister’s house in Delhi. They were there to launch an official economic history of 1981-97, a period which included the balance-of-payments crisis of 1991. The mood was tense. India, said Manmohan Singh, the prime minister, faced “very difficult circumstances”. “Does history repeat itself?” asked Duvvuri Subbarao, the outgoing head of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). “As if we learn nothing from one crisis to another?”

Facebook’s global partnership to expand Internet access in the developing world is getting a lot of attention, despite the campaign’s initial lack of specifics on how it plans to achieve its goals. The initiative — which hopes to get two-thirds of the world’s population online through cheaper smartphones that make a more efficient use of current networks — has been both hailed as a step in the right direction and criticized as a thinly veiled business strategy to reached untapped markets in the developing world.

Over the past few years, the Metropolitan Policy Program at Brookings has collaborated with a wide variety of U.S. metro areas to develop localized export plans and explore the importance of increased global engagement. One of the questions frequently raised by local participants revolves around the role mayors and their associated local economic development offices can and should play in global trade and investment. Some assume this is an area private sector firms can best manage on their own.

Public-private partnerships have become all the rage. Over the last decade, many government and donor agencies have looked for more efficient ways to leverage their declining resources, and for many, these partnerships have seemed like a effective solution. The phrase “public-private partnership,” however, is widely misused. It is often used to describe a variety of relationships that are, in fact, much more complex than the term implies. Perhaps most importantly, the term doesn’t reflect the involvement key stakeholders, particularly nonprofits.

“Art-Culture-Life”: So beckoned the humble sign. Being a fan of all three, I made my way inside. Art came first in a portico lined with rich, Dalí-esque landscapes; in the craft shop, stocked with mottled straw purses and hand-carved bowls; on restaurant walls, splashed with multihued graffiti. There was culture, yes, in the form of eclectic sounds: a D.J. spinning house music and an open-mic session showcasing poets and singers from Africa to America.

There has been a lot of talk lately about the relationship between development and trade, just as the United States is stepping up new trade initiatives across the Atlantic and the Pacific. The announcement of the Trade Africa initiative during President Barack Obama’s recent trip to Africa and calls to renew the African Growth and Opportunity Act next year have also put the benefits of trade with sub-Saharan Africa front and center, which holds 7 out of the fastest 10 growing economies.