A BBC World Service opinion poll has found sharply higher overseas approval ratings for Democrat Obama than Republican challenger Mitt Romney.

An average of 50% favoured Obama, with 9% for Romney, in the survey of 21 797 people in 21 countries.

Only Pakistan's respondents said they would prefer to see far-right conservative Romney win November's election.

France was the most strongly pro-Obama nation with 72% preferring him over Romney – they finished ahead of Australia and Kenya, where he has family.

TNT magazine says it would like to see the results post-debate, where Romney said he would continue drone strikes in Pakistan and put aid restrictions on the country armed with nuclear weapons, should he become president.

He mostly said he supported Obama’s policies on Pakistan.

"It's a nation that's not like others and it does not have a civilian leadership that is calling the shots there," Romney said in the debate.

He was asked by the moderator, Bob Schieffer, whether the US should "divorce" Pakistan, but said he supported continued ties under Congress-approved condition.

"No, it's not time to divorce a nation on Earth that has 100 nuclear weapons and is on the way to double that at some point, a nation that has serious threats from terrorist groups within its nation," Romney replied.

Obama's administration tracked down and killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in Pakistan in 2011.

Another survey by the GlobalPost discovered more than half of their face-to-face interviewees didn’t know who Romney was, and some struggled to pronounce his name.

“What? Mitchrom? … Never heard of him,” a 36-year-old South African stationary shop attendant said.

Africa seems to be predominantly pro-Obama, though the continent was largely ignored at the third presidential debate foreign politics.

The sole reference to South Africa, The Guardian reports, was to the era of white-minority rule, two decades ago.

It came when Mitt Romney said, of Iran: "I would also make sure that their diplomats are treated like the pariah[s] they are around the world, the same way we treated the apartheid diplomats of South Africa," the report said.

There was brief mention of Solamia and Mali, both in reference to terrorism and al Qaeda.

The BBC survey was conducted by GlobeScan/PIPA between July 3 and September 3, 2012.