Every year Bill and Melinda Gates write an annual letter, laying out a strategy for eliminating poverty and suffering in the world. Here it is for 2015. These letters are a big event for a lot of reasons: They are smart, brief, readable and backed by a huge chunk of cash. This makes them one of the most widely read influential documents on international development every year. All the more reason to take a critical look and discuss.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe pledged Saturday $2.5 billion in humanitarian and development aid for the Middle East as he launched a regional tour that includes visits to Jordan and Israel.

 Obama is rightly emphasizing the reality that electricity is an input into nearly every good and service in households, villages, towns and national economies. A region in which 600 million out of 960 million are without power cannot possibly ignite, expand or sustain economic growth and development. And that is why the President decided to do something about it -- launching what I have baptized Obama's Megawatt Diplomacy that aims to build no less than 30,000 megawatts in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA).

President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo has appealed to all diplomats to act like salespeople. During his election campaign he also outlined his vision, focusing on people’s economic welfare, in particular in rural development, agriculture, fisheries, marine resource development and infrastructure.

The United Nations set ambitious goals in 2000 to reduce global poverty and inequality by 2015, and while it successfully cut extreme poverty in half, the multinational group is conflicted about how much developing regions such as sub-Saharan Africa can improve by 2030.

China's top political advisor Yu Zhengsheng wrapped up his visit to Vietnam here on Saturday, during which he agreed with the Vietnamese leaders to enhance mutual trust and properly settle maritime disputes through negotiations.

On the occasion, Speaker of the House of People's Representatives, Honorable Abadula Gemeda said, "Ethiopia and Egypt have very long standing historical, religious, cultural and social relations." (...) He stressed the point that Ethiopia and Egypt need to foster cooperation in areas including education, trade, tourism and investment.

Eco-warriors on the front lines of climate diplomacy often frame the environmental conflict between the developed and the developing world as a version of the notorious skirmish between Lawrence H. Summers and José Lutzenberger, which happened on the sidelines of the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, widely seen as the official start of the world’s interest in climate change.