The world’s first academy for humanitarian relief is to be launched, aimed at training 100,000 aid workers from over 50 countries in organising rapid responses to disasters and emergencies.

The risk of celebrity attachment is oversimplification of the problem and the potential solutions. Zambian economist Dambisa Moyo calls it "glamour aid". Heavily stylised photographs of stars sympathising with suffering masses are certainly a modern cliche.

The rise in multilateral funding, the IDC noted, had been accompanied by a relative decline in spending on programmes in sub-Saharan Africa and on some key millennium development goal targets. It urged DfID to spend more on bilateral programmes, on sub-Saharan Africa, and to “significantly increase spending on reproductive health”.

As Hillary Clinton moves toward a second run for the White House, her family’s global charitable work, mostly through the Clinton Foundation, has come under intense scrutiny. Raising concerns that the Clintons are creating conflicts of interest by blurring the lines between their political, business and charitable interests.

The UK accounts for roughly one in every seven of the world’s aid dollars. Is this post-colonial guilt or the organic development of a centre of expertise?

This is a time of rapid change — and immense opportunity — for the global landscape of development. Aid is no longer the primary source of development funds, as direct investment from the private sector and domestically mobilized resources continue to grow as sources of finance.

The home-court detente with the United States on Monday and Tuesday has once again accentuated Cuba's ingrained gradualism, which has been the hallmark of the island country's diplomacy and economic development for years in its pursuit of security and political correctness.

But Cyclone Pam is more than just a natural disaster. It is a demonstrable effect of worldwide climate change, which scientists and development experts have long warned will hit Pacific Island states the hardest.