On June 22, 2018 the spotlight will fall on Newcastle and Gateshead – or NewcastleGateshead if you prefer – as it becomes the global showcase for the great contributions of the North of England in art and culture, design and innovation.

Works of art from the Government Art Collection (GAC) are displayed in UK Government buildings in nearly every capital city, making it the most dispersed collection of British art in the world. The role of the Collection is to promote British art while contributing to cultural diplomacy.

On Nov. 27, 2015, the Turkish Culture and Information Office and the Yunus Emre Institute in London gave a magnificent example of public diplomacy by jointly organizing a concert at the prestigious Cadogan Hall in London. Both the Turkish and British public, although the latter less significantly, were unaware of this exposition of Ottoman sultans’ western music. The concert, labelled as “Waltzes with Sultans,” therefore was not only educational but also ground-breaking.

The initiative, organized and funded by the Premier League in partnership with World Vision International and the Asian Football Development Project, will train 24 men and 12 women, including a number of Syrian refugee volunteers, who hail from World Vision Jordan, the Jordan FA, and a variety of aid organizations active within the camp.

In 1956, near the end of this first term, Eisenhower convened a White House conference on citizen diplomacy.  Out of that grew Sister Cities International, a non-profit organization with the mission to “promote peace through mutual respect, understanding, and cooperation – one individual, one community at a time.” [...] Durham joined the growing Sister Cities movement toward people-to-people diplomacy.