Yes. And we end up refusing in many ways, as well as working with companies to improve the projects.
Right at the early stages of the situation when a company comes to us with an idea or a project they need support for, we do an assessment with the officers who first touched the company to try to determine how the situation looks, whether or not the company would have the capacity to do what would be necessary where they're putting the project in place, what the country's record is, and just how difficult it would be to do something in that country and with that project. In some situations we conclude that it's not possible, that we do not believe the company would actually be able to do that. So we turn them away, usually fairly early, because we don't want the company to be wasting its time. So we try to make an assessment up front.
There are other situations too, and we have an example that's ongoing now—though I can't give you the name, obviously. But in a sub-Saharan African country, we were approached by a company, and when we first looked at it, we thought, oh, this company may not have the capacity to do it; there are some problems in the country. But the project had tremendous value for the country and we believed there was the potential for that company to actually improve its standards and approaches. So we've been working with them for almost two years now, and they have done many, many things. They've engaged a well-recognized local NGO. They've implemented internal procedures and policies that are related to the voluntary principles on security and safety. They've hired external consultants to help them. They've beefed up their internal staff. We're not there yet, but we think we may actually be able to support them in a situation that's very difficult.
So the situations range from our pushing them away right at the beginning to working with them; but if at the end they can't make it, we'd still say to them, “You don't meet our standards, and we cannot support you.”