"The current five-year Ukraine Media Project (U-Media) runs from October 1, 2011 to September 30, 2016 and is implemented by Internews. U-Media builds on the previous eight years of the Strengthening Independent Media in Ukraine Project, also known as U-Media and also implemented by Internews. The p ... roject has four objectives, with varying degrees of Level of Effort (LOE) prioritization included in parentheses: 1) Support and Promote Freedom of Speech and Media Independence (30%), 2) Increase the Variety of News Sources and Improve News Quality (40%), 3) Improve the Enabling Environment for Media and Freedom of Speech (20%), and 4) Improve Organizational Capacity of Ukrainian Media CSOs (10%) According to the original Request for Applications, at least 55% of the U-Media budget, originally $14 million (which has since increased to $15.85 million), should be used to fund local Ukrainian media organizations. U-Media provides grants to three types of beneficiaries— institutional partners, core partners, and emerging and short-term partners—to achieve these four objectives." (Project background, page vi) more

"Western donor interventions to establish and develop an independent media landscape in Ukraine have been successful overall. Multiple Western donors have helped to support the development of civil society in Ukraine and the development of its independent media system. The political landscape, speci ... fically the fact that that between 2005 and 2010 the Ukrainian Government did not interfere with independent media development and the fact that journalists and the editors enjoyed relative freedom encouraged the further development of the media. Some claim that the pro-democratic political regime was instrumental in ensuring that independent media flourished after the Orange revolution. However, this development would not have been possible without Western donor investment in the independent media and in journalism training that have been made in Ukraine from the early 1990s until the present. Most importantly, over the last six years, because of a pro-democratic leadership and indirect political pressure from the European Union on Ukraine, which wants to join the European Union, Ukrainian media and NGOs have been able to develop and flourish and are having a clear, visible impact as government watchdogs and as a barometer for the development of civil society. However, after 2010, since the beginning of the Yanukovich presidency, these watchdog functions started to diminish. Civil society in Ukraine, although still fragile, has made significant progress in recent years, and media outlets and NGOs have played a central role in its development. Donor support has been influential in the establishment and the development of the vast majority of media monitoring organizations, media and journalist training organizations, media NGOs and to a lesser extent, independent media outlets in Ukraine. Many independent media in Ukraine today exist because of the grant aid they received over the years." (Executive summary, page 4) more