Inside his room at the Addis Ababa University campus, 23-year-old Bereket reached into a cupboard and pulled out a pack of Sensation Honey condoms. He had used them with the last three women he had intercourse with. Bereket, who did not want to use his last name because of cultural sensitivities about sex, said he prefers this brand because it's “modern,” adding that he avoids the free condoms that are widely available in Ethiopia because he cannot be sure of their quality.

Since March, the US Agency for International Development (USAID) has provided training to 60 engineers from Jamshoro, Guddu and Muzaffargarh thermal power plants. The training enhanced the engineers’ technical skills and introduced them to industry best practices to improve the operation, maintenance, and management of power plants.

Governments in South America have turned their back on US financial aid. Central Americans have seen tens of thousands of minors depart for the US under the pressure of poverty and violence. And the Caribbean is turning increasingly violent as drug cartels have reclaimed abandoned trafficking routes. Aside from more economic aid, Biden could be left with little more than rhetoric to offer a region that in 2011 ranked President Obama the most popular leader in the Americas.

A statement from the Public Affairs Section of the United States Embassy said under a concluded agreement, USAID and GIZ would make available funds and technical assistance to PAC for the implementation of capacity building activities, advisory services, public hearings, and peer learning with public accounts committees of other West African countries.

Two U.S. lawmakers will introduce legislation on Tuesday to end restrictions on international food aid programs, which they say would free up hundreds of millions of dollars per year and get aid to some 9 million more hungry people around the world. U.S. Senators Bob Corker of Tennessee, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Democrat Chris Coons of Delaware, chairman of the Africa subcommittee, are jointly introducing the "Food for Peace Reform Act of 2014," according to a copy of the bill obtained by Reuters.

The techniques used in commercial social media campaigns don't always translate to the field of international development. Global development is a niche sector, so its communicators don't need tens of thousands of followers to be successful. Even for commercial outfits, a followership of 30,000 is not in itself an indication that the campaign is being effective: what if only 15% of those followers are from the target audience? 

The U.S. Agency for International Development, with help from National Security Advisor Susan Rice, announced Thursday a new “multi-sectoral nutrition strategy” which aims to reduce by 2 million over five years the number of chronically malnourished and “stunted” children worldwide and also to keep acute malnutrition below 15 percent in places experiencing humanitarian crisis.

I had to laugh when I heard about the U.S. Agency for International Development’s botched effort to create a Twitter-like platform for Cuba intended to undermine the communist regime. Even the name — ZunZuneo — to the State Department’s credit, sounded like something cooked up in Silicon Valley, not Foggy Bottom.