Last week I was thrilled to host a dinner for a delegation from Uganda in the US on a State Department International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) visit. The conversation over dinner was an amazing mix of informal chat and high politics. The members of the delegation came to Albany, NY on the final leg of their multi-city tour and participated in an interesting set of meetings set up by the International Center of the Capital Region (ICCR) , the World Affairs Council chapter in the capital city of New York State. As a member of the National Council of International Visitors, ICCR has been hosting international delegations for over 50 years. These delegations come from places including Argentina, Chad, Nigeria, Madagascar, Togo, France, Italy Kazakhstan, Brazil, Canada, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Jordan come to confer with professional counterparts on issues including agribusiness, public libraries, government, law, the environment and public health. What is happening in Albany is replicated around the US. The State Department notes:
The International Visitor Leadership Program annually brings to the United States approximately 5,000 foreign nationals from all over the world to meet and confer with their professional counterparts and to experience America firsthand. The visitors, who are selected by American Foreign Service Officers overseas, are current or potential leaders in government, politics, the media, education, the arts, business and other fields. Among the thousands of distinguished individuals who have participated in the International Visitor Leadership Program since its inception almost seven decades ago are more than 290 current and former Chiefs of State and Heads of Government, 2,000 cabinet-level ministers, and many, many other distinguished leaders from the public and private sectors.
These visits are worth gold to US public diplomacy. Not only do they allow for visitors to meet their peers in the US (and hopefully remain touch with many of them) and gather important programmatic information they can take home, the IVLP is also an important way for Americans to meet people from parts of the world they are unlikely to visit themselves. The US population remains woefully uniformed about international affairs and this has serious implications for foreign policy and funding for foreign assistance- as well as the ability of Americans to appreciate and participate in globalization. The IVLP makes these issues less a matter for the New York Times and more a conversation over a dinner table, a small meeting in an office and a friendship begun that might last for decades. Yes, high-level diplomacy has its place and it requires trained professionals to carry it out. But it must be underscored by the engagement of non-professionals who can meet and exchange views in informal settings that defuse the intense politics that often dominate official meetings. US foreign policy cannot live on Track II diplomacy alone, but it also can’t live without it. As the conversations over my dinner table last week proved, serious issues can be addressed in informal venues and all involved are the better for it. Citizen diplomacy is good for diplomacy – and for the citizens who engage in it. This is quiet and unheralded work but it deserves the continued (and increased) support of the US Government.