and tsveta, you didn't give the example today, i think it was a usaid-funded program. was trying to take that to ukraine, and it didn't fit in the context. and she said it would have been much better served if we took the polish model and applied in in ukrainian content. so i think there's a lot of wisdom in that. and michael made good points. and carl set this morning, the political part of this is extremely important. and i as like michael's take on looking at small and medium-sized business owners. to answer your question, i see a division of labor. i don't think we should cut it off all to even very hopeless countries. we should continue to use the national endowment for democracy. to keep the flame alive, they now to work in authoritarian regimes better than anybody else. ambassadors also have small funds that they can give to that. >> we have a small amount of time, but let's open it up. this woman here, yes. >> melinda, thank you so much for bringing up azerbaijan. i think is an interesting case study for a lost the themes that have come up here. first of all fo

i'm afraid i will differ from what tsveta just said. not in the analysis, with which i fully agree, but my starting point is that central europe has been changing lately in a couple of past years. to say maybe the obvious, the united states were the first and most natural point of reference for anyone striving for freedom. americans were among the first to come to us with a transition after 1989. each though in terms quantity the u.s. funding was quickly and by far exceeded by the european union means for transformation assistance, the u.s. political leadership and commitment greatly contributed to driving processes. as a result, many felt that special kinship between the two sides over the years. after president obama took office, as we know, certain bitterness appeared. several prominent political figures from central and eastern europe responded in an alarming mode to the changes that the new administration introduced. to calm things down the u.s. articulated what we call a new approach to central european democracies. joe biden turn

let's go to tsveta for her words. >> thank you so much for including me in this conversation. i think i'm one of the few relative optimists in the room. for that reason, again, i'm especially grateful to be here since sometimes it feels that there are fewer optimists left nowadays than there were some time before ago. my own work is on the democracy promotion efforts of the center in eastern european countries, members of the european union. so those would be poland, czech republic, slovakia, baltic countries. this work has provided me with an unintended but i think valuable and unique perspective on the effectiveness of democracy effectiveness. i would like to give you a sense on how they are promoting democracy and what that teaches us about the effectiveness of u.s. assistance. then i will move on to briefly reflect on the effectiveness of the center in eastern europeans themselves and then what are the potential cooperation opportunities i see between center and eastern europe and u.s. in the field of democracy promotion. now, what i have learned about promotion is that so

one of the things i take from th tsveta's comments neighbors countries have a lot to offer, but they don't seize the opportunity. knowing about this specific case, it's the same for neighboring states to not take opportunity to play a constructive role with better insight, perhaps, into local and political dynamics. and one way to assume a lot of economic and other forms of leverage. so i would -- >> i think, again, i'm not the original expert, but what i've seen is that original actors have a very important role to play. and sometimes, it takes encouragement to realize that potential. sometimes, that encouragement is by the people in the recipient country that are striving for democracy. acting both solo activists, as well as politicians, particularly asking them to articulate the rationale why democracy should be in the country. oftentimes it takes international actors or such as the u.s. to encourage the democracy promotion. the fact that it's turned from south africa and zimbabwe, i would not take as discouragement but take as a challenge that there could be a result. >> very int

and tsveta, you didn't give the example today but observed a program, a us aid program, local governance program. usa was trying to take a local governance program to ukraine and it didn't fit at all in the context. she said, it would have been much better served if we had taken the polish model much more similar and applied it in a ukrainian context. i think there's a lot of wisdom in that. and michael made good points. programs continue to be more technical and not political. and carl said this morning, political part of this is extremely important. and i as like michael's take on looking at small and medium-sized business owners. to answer your question, i see a division of labor. i don't think we should cut off all assistance to very hopeless countries. we should continue to use the national endowment for democrat cease to keep the flame alive. they know how to work in authoritarian regimes than anybody else. ambassadors also have small funds that they can give to that. >> i wish we had a bit more time but let's open it up for questions. this woman here, yes. >> national endowment fo