Since my last note to you in January, I want to update you on our more recent activities. In my last report, I indicated that 2011 was a tremendous improvement financially over 2010. The challenge this year will be to maintain that momentum and do even better.

Outlook for 2012

So far, 2012 is off to a good start. We won a $1.5 million contract to provide technical assistance for credit programs in Liberia. We have also increased our activity level in the first three months of 2012 in our flagship Afghanistan program where we are helping the Afghan Ministry of Agriculture improve its performance. This increase is largely due to our expanding activities outside of Kabul into seven regions in Afghanistan.

The last several months have also been an intense period for us in applying for new programs—indeed, a long-time IESC staffer characterized it as the most intense proposal period in his memory. We continue to be hopeful about efforts to expand our efforts in the Sahel, the Middle East, and Sub-Saharan Africa as both a prime and subcontractor.

Current Operations

I am pleased to report that our program in Afghanistan is going smoothly. Our excellent Chief of Party, Brian Rudert, in his six months on the job has stabilized the program. Our efforts to expand outside of Kabul are off to a good start, but not without difficulty and danger. Indeed I just returned from a week-long visit to Afghanistan where I saw first hand the excellent cooperation between our project and the Afghan Ministry of Agriculture. By the same token, I also saw directly the very real threat of terrorism and the dangers this poses to both our program and our people. In the safety of Washington we sometimes forget that the program can grind to a halt for several days at a time due to these very real threats.

I am pleased to report that our other new programs in South Sudan and Kazakhstan also are off to good starts. Last month I traveled to South Sudan with out project leader, Jeff Millington, where we gave a well received week-long course to South Sudan’s first batch of over forty new ambassadors. While that project is off to a good start, the recent renewal of fighting between Sudan and South Sudan has raised questions about the future scope of the project.

Our Kazakhstan Business Connections project will soon welcome 11 entrepreneurs representing the health sector as participants on our first business development tour.  They will arrive in Washington on May 20 and travel to Chicago, South Bend, and other sites in northern Indiana, Charlotte and New York.     

Focus on our Volunteers

This year has granted us the opportunity to utilize a significant resource we have not been able to utilize as we have in the past—our volunteers. Long-time Volunteer Expert (VE) Al Schlachtmeyer will soon join our team in Afghanistan; VE Carrol McCarren joined us in January to help research different mechanisms for fundraising and to revive our Advisory Council.  Carrol also engaged a few of our VEs in the midwest to contribute their expertise to the Kazakhstan Business Connections project.  VE Nancy McCaslin organized meetings on their behalf with American medical equipment distributors and manufacturers in Indiana. We also expect to deploy several volunteers on our new program in Liberia.  What’s more, VE Harold (Hal) Handley received the VEGA Volunteer Impact Service Award for his success in helping to develop the Ceylon Cinnamon brand and enhancing the cinnamon industry into a driver of economic growth in Sri Lanka. Hal is now helping initiatives develop for assisting Afghanistan’s saffron growers.

And We Continue to Grow…

IESC has added several new faces in recent months. David Seider is now the program manager for our large Afghan project; last fall Judy Oliver joined us as a program manager for our Kazakhstan project; and Danielle Wilkins has transitioned from being an intern to a program associate working with Judy on the Kazakhstan project as well as supporting other programs.

I am also pleased to share with you the news that Bill McBride has joined our board as General Counsel. We are indeed fortunate to have Bill on board as he is a very well known and prominent attorney in Florida and ran several years ago as the Democratic candidate for governor.

Finally, I want to share with you the fact that we had our annual retreat at the end of February. We identified some mid-course corrections to our overall strategy and built upon our earlier efforts to transform IESC into an organization where we have practice leaders paralleling the priorities in the development sector today.

I want to thank you all for your continued support of IESC as we move forward in addressing problems of poverty and development around the world. 

All the best,

Tom