Regional Focus
USAID Sri Lanka's newest program Connecting Regional Economies (USAID/CORE) is a part of the U.S government's integrated strategy designed to promote economic growth in conflict affected and conflict bordering areas in Sri Lanka. The program has 4 offices, in Colombo, Trincomalee, Anuradhapura and Ampara covering operations in the East, North Central and Uva Provinces where its teams closely work with beneficiaries to implement identified interventions in the dairy, agriculture, fisheries, tourism and other sectors.
While creating linkages with private sector entrepreneurs USAID/CORE aims to accomplish this with an integrated approach, through focusing on livelihood development, improving value chains, ensuring participation in value chain services, supporting workforce development and creating a positive business enabling environment.
The challenge of this approach, expanding and improving value chains within the conflict affected regions, is to ensure that grassroots producers can improve their livelihood, either by becoming entrepreneurs themselves or by supporting other organizations' efforts to grow and prosper. In order to do this the USAID/CORE program has catalyzed new collaborative attitudes and actions leading to economic growth overall in these conflict affected and conflict sensitive areas. To accomplish this goal, the USAID/CORE program will achieve five distinctive objects.