Despite Africa’s uneven progress, I remained deeply and profoundly optimistic about Africa’s future. This optimism is grounded in expanding democracy, improved security, rapid economic growth, and greater opportunities that exist for all of Africa’s people. It is clear to me as well as to many others that the 21st century will not only be shaped in Beijing and Washington, but also in Pretoria, Abuja, Nairobi, and Addis.

The Department of State sponsors Fulbright-mtvU Fellowships to promote music as a global force for promoting mutual understanding. Fellows are chosen through a multi-tiered, merit-based selection process including reviews by U.S. and foreign academic leaders and area experts. The final selection is made by the presidentially-appointed J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board.

South Korea has spent billions in promoting its "nation brand" via its technology and other attributes. But what has driven up the country's soft power across the world as much as anything is "Gangnam Style," the Korean rapper PSY's galloping horse dance, hipster wannabe clothes and tongue-in-cheek attitude, offset by an irresistible and simple hook that even a three year old could mimic.

As Washington broadens its military footprint in the Sahel region of Africa, US analysts are urging the administration of President Barack Obama to devote more effort to diplomacy, especially in Mali.

Kris Kam, a 28-year-old advertising executive in Singapore, tells me, for example, that when his mother asked him to buy her a new smartphone, she requested a Samsung Galaxy S3 “just like the white one she saw in her favorite Korean drama, My Love, Madame Butterfly.”

Through strategic planning and investment in research and technology, strong political will, and effective governance, Singapore has emerged from water insecurity to become a global hydrohub.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has taken issue with critics who say US global power is waning, arguing in her final public speech in office that America will continue to lead the 21st century. But on the day before she officially steps down, Clinton called for the nation's institutions and relationships to be modernised, saying what was needed was "a new architecture for this new world. More Frank Gehry than formal Greek".

They have, along with other of my colleagues, really embraced the whole idea of partnerships and understood that in the 21st century, diplomacy and development is not in any way confined to government-to-government relations. Those have to be tended, those have to be respected, those have to be nurtured and grown. But at the same time in this increasingly interconnected, networked world, we wanted to reach out people-to-people, to our NGOs, our faith communities, our private sector, and so much more.