"The Access to Information Program (A2I) was a five-year Central Asia regional program funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and implemented by Internews under Cooperative Agreement 176-14-00005 from October 1, 2014 to September 30, 2019. During the first phase of the project (2014-2017), Internews implemented activities in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan. The second phase focused on activities in Kazakhstan and Tajikistan only, while Kyrgyzstan’s media sector was supported with a new standalone project. The project aimed to strengthen the long-term sustainability of targeted media outlets, facilitate regional cooperation and conduct a number of activities designed to promote the modernization of newsrooms throughout the region, improving the financial viability of media, and increasing access to information that will keep government institutions accountable to citizens. A2I activities were implemented toward the following Project Goal: Increase citizen access to civically-relevant information in order to improve governance outcomes. From October 1, 2014 until September 30, 2017, the project was based around the following four objectives: Objective One: Increased regional cooperation to improve the competitiveness of non-state media outlets through content generation and sharing; Objective Two: Increased resilience of independent media to survive the impending treaty mandated shift to digital broadcasting across Central Asia; Objective Three: Professional standards for diverse and sustainable media voices; Objective Four: Improved legislative and policy environment. In 2017, USAID awarded Internews a two-year cost extension, under which the program goal remained the same, but the objectives were slightly adjusted to reflect the changing environment and needs of the media community in Central Asia." (Executive summary)