Of the 158 countries the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) cover in their inaugural global terrorism index, only 31 have had no attacks in the ten years to 2011. Yet although attacks are distributed widely around the world, the majority are concentrated in just a handful of countries.

For practitioners of public diplomacy, the ability to accurately measure the effectiveness of PD has often been described as “the holy grail.” Yesterday at the Heritage Foundation, Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Tara Sonenshine spoke about the necessity of public diplomacy and the metrics being used and developed for its evaluation.

The role of cultural diplomacy in building bridges among different people came under focus at a symposium organized by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) on Monday at the UN House in Mishref.

The U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Bay Fang met with Georgian Minister of Culture Guram Odisharia. The meeting was held at the Ministry of Culture and it was attended by the U.S. ambassador to Georgia Richard Norland, head of the public affairs department of the embassy Michael Turner and culture attaché Lola Petrovac.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a splash with a hand-drawn cartoon of a bomb, its fuse lit, at the podium of the UN's General Assembly in September. He drew, in red magic marker, a thick red line.

The World Expo began at the height of the Industrial Revolution and had for a long time drawn broad enthusiasm among organizers and visitors alike in the industrialized nations. It had, however, faded from popular imagination in the West.

Mr. Corwin will be joined by Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Tara Sonenshine and Assistant Secretary of State for Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs Kerri-Ann Jones. Mr. Corwin will also lead two international webchats on Monday, December 3 and Tuesday, December 4.

I am delighted to spend some time this afternoon outlining how and why we gauge the effectiveness of our PD programs, talk about evaluation strategies, and lay out statistics. But first, I want to share an experience I had in Bosnia Herzegovina last week. I tell you this because few things are more compelling than looking our program alumni in the eye, and talking to them face to face about their very personal experiences in the U.S.