In The News

The world’s greatest places of 2025: The Pekoe Trail

March 18, 2025

Up in the Sri Lankan highlands, a 19th-century transport network for tea is now conveying adventurers to remote communities and businesses. The 186-mile Pekoe Trail—completed last March and named for the high-grade black tea produced on many Sri Lankan estates—is the country’s first long-distance walking path, linking thousands of colonial-era dirt roads and railway tracks built by the British for exporting tea. Though local companies…

December 16, 2024

Minster of Agriculture, Hon. Saboto Ceasar offered commendation to the USAID Caribbean Agricultural Productivity improvement Activity (CAPA) for the tangible investments made in the agriculture sector in St. Vincent and the Grenadines over the last 16 months. CAPA is implemented by IESC.

November 25, 2024

The Embassy of Switzerland, in collaboration with the Government and the International Labour Organization, hosted the hand-over ceremony of the Safe Labour Migration Programme (SLMP) at Cinnamon Life, Colombo. This event marked the formal conclusion of a 14-year partnership that significantly advanced the safe and regular labour migration landscape in Sri Lanka. Launched in 2010, the SLMP was implemented through a multi-stakeholder…

November 7, 2024

During the Caribbean Week of Agriculture 2024, held from October 7 to 11, an important memorandum of understanding was signed between the University of the West Indies and the USAID-funded, IESC-implemented Caribbean Agricultural Productivity improvement Activity (CAPA). This agreement aims to bolster agricultural production and market linkages while driving innovation across the region.

October 29, 2024

The U.S. Embassy in the Dominican Republic announced the extension of Project TradeSafe (TraSa), part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Food for Progress program and implemented by IESC, for two more years, with an additional investment of approximately US$6.5 million.

October 21, 2024

In the third phase of the Coding School, which is funded by the USAID Industry-led Skills Development Program, 464 new participants completed the training program, marking a total of 1,500 women having completed the program.