Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Sharifi, you mentioned in your remarks that what is needed is flexible funding. Others have said similar things.
What I noted in a lot of the testimony we've heard is that the project-based funding model—treating democracy and human rights like other ODA projects, such as health or education—doesn't quite fit, because having to decide five years in advance what activities, what outputs...and it's a year or two, sometimes, to get the contract for the funding. It's very time-constrained. You have a five-year project, and then you move on.
This isn't how democracy...what the needs are right now. It's more about long-term, flexible funding and risk-taking, which governments are not likely to do, as well as being rapid. Sometimes things change on a dime, and we need to get the support in tomorrow. I wonder if you could talk about that.
Do we have things like the Equality Fund, with which we're funding small grassroots women's organizations? If there's a different model that would better speak...we're not talking about a lot of money, as you've said, but is there something we could do that would be a better fit, that would better support the organic human rights defenders—who are doing this work with almost nothing—to interconnect and be supported?
I'll start with Mr. Sharifi and then, if I have time, I'd like to hear from Ms. McCarthy and the others.