In the wake of decolonization, many African leaders exploited Cold War rivalries in order to extract resources for modernization and development. Architecture, planning, and construction were at the forefront of the Soviet and Eastern European offer for Africa. From the early 1960s, state-socialist institutions designed and constructed multiple medical, educational, cultural, and sports facilities as well as housing and industrial plants across the continent. Some of these buildings were highly visible gifts for countries pursuing the socialist development path, such as Ethiopia during the Derg regime, while others were bartered for raw materials, sometimes with governments hostile to socialism. The socialist countries also supported architectural education in Africa, both by sponsoring universities on the continent and by offering scholarships for Africans to study in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Among the recipients of such scholarships was Stephen Mukiibi, who in the 1980s studied architecture at the Kyiv Institute of Engineering and Construction (known today as the Kyiv National University of Construction and Architecture) in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.