This is an important question.
It is common, among NGOs in the NGO community, for every NGO to sort of specialize. There might be some particular opportunity that then leads that NGO to become more engaged in a particular sector or a particular country.
Ukraine became a significant part of CBIE's involvement in international development simply because when the country became independent, the Canadian government was looking for Canadian partners that could help the Canadian government forge new relationships at different levels--academic levels, government levels--and in different networks. It wanted to work with them to help the newly independent countries, Ukraine among them, to be part of the western community.
Before that, CBIE, our organization, had, a little bit here and there, educational programs. When the Soviet Union fell apart, it was simply a matter of pragmatism that we then became heavily involved. We were heavily involved in two streams, public administration reform and civil society development, which CIDA wanted to fund. So we were driven by CIDA's funding priorities, but we also had our own values and our own expertise, which were growing.
I have to mention one critical thing here, if I may. We are talking about Ukraine, but CBIE has had a very successful program in Georgia in the south Caucasus, which was an offspring of our success in Ukraine. That success told us that you can transport, in very many ways, what we are now experiencing in Ukraine to any post-Soviet country, because there are so many lingering legacies, structures, attitudes, and practices that are still common. Every country has been on its own path since independence, but there are so many similarities that there are very low thresholds to work with the same experience and at least understand the problems in these countries from the long experience with the evolution in Ukraine.