A courtesy call is an appointment normally made by someone of a lesser rank, upon a much higher ranking person. For example, the first meeting between a new ambassador and a foreign minister will be termed as “Courtesy call by Ambassador (name) of (country) on the Minister of Foreign Affairs”. In some cases, you are not even sure who ranks higher, so in order to be safe you would also call that first meeting as a ‘courtesy call’.

At other times, you consider it a courtesy call when a foreign diplomat comes a-calling upon a member of the Administration or personnel of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In cases such as these, it is not about the rank; it is about the courtesy of the visit.

Courtesy calls by foreign diplomats on the members of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is a must. In recent years the diplomatic practice of only having contact with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the country where the diplomat is posted, has become nearly obsolete. These days foreign diplomats deal with as many civil servants in different ministries as possible, and conduct courtesy calls with as many members of the government machinery as they can. This helps to pave the way for better networking, rather than relying on just the MFA contact to forward a request, a complaint, or an observation.

I always find it that it is best to get as many courtesy calls as possible done within the first six months of my posting. In Washington DC this helped because less than 10 months into my posting, 9/11 happened. The reliance on contacts at that time became imperative. It became imperative again 18 years later when a pandemic caused a global lockdown and no one was in the office to answer phone calls. By that time, in 2020, WhatsApp messages were already popular and widely used, so we diplomats were still able to reach out to our contacts using their personal mobile numbers.

Despite the pandemic, courtesy calls are still very much part and parcel of a diplomat’s repertoire. Nothing beats a face-to-face meeting, to build rapport and closeness. Which is why you would still see ambassadors coming to pay courtesy calls on the top management of ministries and government agencies.

Five months into my new post, and I am still slowly but surely making my rounds, saying hello to colleagues and bosses and other contacts related to my work. Five months in, and I am still entertaining a multitude of courtesy call requests by ambassadors of foreign countries – to the extent that I have had to cap the number at only three per month.

With that said, excuse me while I receive a call from one of the foreign diplomats. Laters!