"USAID’s ProMedia II Regional project, implemented by IREX between 1999 and 2014 provided a flexible tool to support independent media in a time of transition in Europe and Eurasia (E&E). The project supported multi-year, full-time technical assistance projects in three countries: Bulgaria and Albania from 1999 to 2004 and Macedonia from 2000 to 2004. It gave USAID a platform to follow-up early assistance under another mechanism that gave rise to European Radio for Belarus, which has grown into an important off-shore alternative news source in a country with a largely state-controlled media. It gave IREX an opportunity to turn an idea for measuring a media sector as a whole into the Media Sustainability Index, a respected authority on the state of media in the E&E region. Finally, it served as a tool to fund a number of small-scale regional projects and to bring together disparate media development projects in E&E so that personnel could learn lessons from one another and make use of a strong network of talent working on similar issues." (Executive summary)