public diplomacy
As part of the sports diplomacy program, Tony Sanneh and Thomas Rongen, two American football (soccer) coaches arrived in Port Au Prince this week to take part in a sports program for youth in Haiti, from August 3 - 9, 2014 with partnership from the Haitian National Police (PNH) and the Community Policing Unit, Scouts d'Haïti, and the Haitian Ministry of National Education, Youth and Sports.
This week, the US-Africa Leaders Summit took over Foggy Bottom to tackle issues of development, human rights, good governance, and economic growth.
The massive gathering of nearly 50 African heads of state and government in Washington allowed top U.S. officials to broker deals between American companies and African dignitaries, as well as press privately for action on security and human rights concerns. And at a time when Europe and major economies such as China are expanding their foothold in Africa, the conference gave the United States a chance to reinforce its long-standing connection to the continent.
If the United States hopes to maintain a level of influence in the world commensurate with its economic and military strength, it must modernize and dramatically improve some of its soft-power foreign policy tools. Many of those tools have proven ineffective, and fail to reflect the transformational changes in the past two decades prompted by technology, connectivity, and global markets.
The European Union (EU) has invested €4.6million to establish six EU Centres across Australia and New Zealand for the 2014-2016 period. The EU Centres, co-funded by their host universities, include a wide variety of partners from all sectors of the community. "This is the largest public outreach program for the EU in Australia and New Zealand and expands the existing network from four to six centres", said EU Ambassador to Australia and New Zealand, Mr Sem Fabrizi.
Public diplomacy means local community education in underdeveloped countries where disease is a stigma and reporting on issues like Ebola is poor. Ebola is now a front-page story and a social media phenomenon. Let us use that momentum to demand support to create effective village- and community-based education in Africa, Latin America and other places where diseases go unreported.