CADE Capacity Development Programme for CSOs 2025–2026
Are you part of a civil society organisation (CSO) looking to make a more substantial impact on digital policy?
The Civil Society Alliances for Digital Empowerment (CADE), led by Diplo, is inviting applications for its sponsored (free of charge) 2025–2026 Capacity Development Programme for CSOs, a unique opportunity to strengthen your organisation’s voice in global digital policy. The application deadline has been extended to 5 December 2025 in response to ongoing interest. Learn more and apply!
Diplo Academy upcoming courses and programmes
🍂 Applications open! Diplo’s 2026 winter online courses
- AI Technology, Policy and Governance
- Diplomatic Communication
- Multilateral Diplomacy Institutional Aspects
- Humanitarian Diplomacy
- Public Diplomacy Essentials
Register now to reserve your place in our specialised winter courses!
👉🏼 Application deadlines for certificates issued by Diplo: 26 January 2026
For further information and to apply, click the course titles above or visit Diplo Academy’s course catalogue.
◆ Need financial assistance? Scholarships are available!
Thanks to support from the government of Malta, partial scholarships are available for applicants from developing countries to attend upcoming Diplo online courses. These scholarships cover 30%–60% of course fees and can be applied to most 2026 online courses. Browse our course catalogue and contact us at [email protected] for further information.
Upcoming events
◆ Gaming and Africa’s Youth: Opportunities, Challenges, and Future Pathways (3 Dec.)
Africa’s youth population – the largest and fastest growing in the world – faces an urgent unemployment challenge. Yet amidst this, a thriving gaming culture is emerging across the continent, fuelled by the digital revolution. Globally, gaming is more than entertainment: it is a billion-dollar industry creating jobs, exports, and innovation.
Can Africa transform its youth gaming culture into a productive, ethical, and inclusive economic force? Join the discussion on 3 December 2025, 13:00–14:30 UTC. Register now!
◆ Digital inclusion by design: Leveraging existing infrastructure to leave no one behind
In 2024, 2.6 billion people did not use the internet at least once every three months. As economies and societies rapidly digitalise, persistent digital divides often result in digital transformations that primarily benefit easier-to-reach, connected populations, inadvertently deepening inequalities. This event aims to share practical experiences from the ground on leveraging existing infrastructure to connect the unconnected and the hardest-to-reach populations.
The event is co-organised by the Universal Postal Union (UPU), Giga, and Diplo. It is hosted in situ by the Giga Connectivity Centre in Geneva. Learn more!
Main takeaways from our recent events
◆ Strengthening West Africa’s Digital Future: Diplo delivers a training for trainers in cyber diplomacy for the ECOWAS member states
As cyberthreats escalate and digital interconnections reshape global geopolitics, West Africa is steadily building the diplomatic capacity needed to safeguard its digital future. To support the sustainable development of diplomatic capacities in the region, Diplo has delivered a Training of Trainers Programme on Cybersecurity and Cyber Diplomacy, in partnership with GIZ and the ECOWAS Commission. Read more!
Blogs and publications
◆ When a luxury brand does the lobbying: The rise of Rolex diplomacy
Is Rolex becoming a new player in soft power? The luxury watchmaker effectively combines its prestigious reputation with smart corporate diplomacy to address US tariffs and adjust to the shifting political and social conditions worldwide. Read the blog post!
◆ The Death of the ‘Gentleman’s game’? Cricket as proxy war in South Asia
There is a long-standing theory in South Asian diplomacy that cricket functions as a safety valve. For decades, the pitch was viewed as a ‘demilitarised zone’, a rare space where India and Pakistan could engage without the immediate threat of escalation. Read the blog post!
◆ Why is Shadow AI dangerous for diplomats?
Shadow AI poses a dual threat to modern diplomacy: it creates vulnerabilities for security breaches and erodes protected knowledge assets. To counter this challenge, this analysis delves into the nature of Shadow AI and proposes effective pathways for diplomatic services to regain control. Read the blog post!
◆ Rethinking learning: Hope, solutions, and wisdom with AI in the classroom
Dismissing AI’s potential role in education is both futile and misguided. The technology exists, students are using it, and that will not change. The question is whether we can integrate AI in ways that enhance, rather than replace, learning. Read the blog post!
◆ AI in schools: The reality is messier than the solutions
AI is already present in classrooms, whether or not schools have formal policies, teachers are equipped to manage it, or we feel ready. This blog post explores why the issue goes beyond AI itself, how similar technological shifts have challenged education in the past, and what is at risk if we respond too slowly or narrowly. Read the blog post!
◆ The entropy trap: When creativity forces AI into piracy
Can AI ever avoid reproducing what it learns? The GEMA vs OpenAI ruling suggests that the very structure of creativity may constrain generative models to imitation, raising questions about whether true originality is even possible in such systems. Read the blog post!
◆ The ‘Limits of Growth’ report: 40 years later II
The alarmism that followed the 1972 Limits of Growth report, which predicted civilisation’s collapse by c. 2040, pushed policy towards centralisation, token gestures, and factional debate. Read the blog post!
◆ The future of the EU data protection under the Omnibus Package
EU data protection law and competitiveness are struggling to align, according to senior Union leaders. That is why the GDPR and ePrivacy Directive are reportedly next on the digital omnibus’s chopping board. Amid leaked drafts and questionable legal reasoning, all eyes are on 19 November for the Commission’s official proposal. Read the DW analysis!
◆ What the Cloudflare outage taught us: Tracing ones that shaped the internet of today
Every outage reveals another fault line in the systems we depend on, reinforcing the need for resilience to be embedded in the design process rather than treated as an afterthought. Read the DW analysis!
◆ DW Weekly #240 Code meets climate: AI and digital at COP30
In the latest issue of the DW Weekly newsletter:
- Code meets climate: AI and digital at COP30
- This week’s updates on AI governance
- New measures shield children from online harms
- G20 leaders set digital priorities for a more inclusive global future
- Ongoing Nexperia saga: Netherlands’ chip seizure meets China’s legal challenge
Latest videos
◆ AI Shorts #24: ChatGPT Leaks, Meta’s Ad Scandal, Google AI Finance
AI is having a chaotic week, from leaked ChatGPT conversations to scam-funded ad empires and Google turning finance into a personalised AI feed. Here’s everything you need to know.
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Diplo is a non-profit foundation established by the governments of Malta and Switzerland. Diplo works to increase the role of small and developing states, and to improve global governance and international policy development.
