Thank you.
Yes, we do. Our entire programming model is based on collaborating with local community-based organizations, or CBOs, as we often call them, local non-governmental organizations, and local communities. We also collaborate quite extensively with a number of other international organizations on the ground. For example, we have strong relationships with UNICEF, UNDP, UNHCR, and other organizations, partly because we're such a specialized agency.
In terms of how we decide where we're going to be, and the mechanisms that exist for us to identify what those needs are, that's an iterative process that our office is engaged in all the time, in the countries in which we're working, and the countries in which we believe we ought to be working. Most often what constrains that decision-making process is resources, it's nothing more than that. However, security is something we take very, very seriously, and we look at that too.
A number of different early warning mechanisms exist. Certainly, it was no surprise to us and to our team that South Sudan imploded the way it did. The timing of the implosion was a surprise to all of us, but the fact that it was heading in a certain direction...there was a lot of evidence to suggest that this was what was going to happen.
What I would say to you is that it is imperfect, but what we have found is that, over time, if you are able to withstand those ups and downs and that inevitable ebb and flow that is a conflict or post-conflict civil war environment, it is rarely intense forever, and nor is it peaceful forever, if you are in those in-between phases. But if you're an organization that is prepared to stick it out, if you have the resiliency and the determination, when those local partners and local communities recognize that you're invested for a longer period of time, that also contributes to the success of that program.
We have seen that in Afghanistan, where we've been on the ground for more than 12 year now, with funding from CIDA and other partners, now DFATD. We've seen that in eastern Congo and elsewhere. It's this sense that international organizations land, they set up, they put their banners everywhere, they're running around doing high-profile, high-visibility things, and as soon as the cameras begin to go home and public interest begins to wane and donors develop fatigue, all of those gains that were made begin to evaporate. That's when you also see higher levels of local corruption and various other things, because people are actually only trying to get what they can get for as long as they can get it. Until we break that kind of model, until we break the attitudes around that and begin to make longer-term investments, that's always going to be a risk.
For us, it's a constant process to identify where we can have an impact, what the security risk will be to our staff, and who is on the ground that we can invest in. We don't go in with a prescribed version of what we think we should be doing. We go in and we ask questions, we conduct comprehensive needs assessments, we talk to local experts, international experts, we identify the gaps and we focus on the protection strategies—access to justice, education, including accelerated learning, safe and protected spaces for kids, and livelihoods and economic development—for children and youth.
Did you want to add to that?