Doing Development Differently: An Interview with Matt Andrews and Leni Wild

Posted by The Polis Team / 2nd February 2015 / Categories: Analysis, Polis / Tags: Doing Development Differently, Governance, International Development Cooperation / -

This month we focus on Doing Development Differently (DDD), a community of development researchers and practitioners brought together in an effort to understand better flexible and locally led approaches to governance issues in developing countries. This article is based on separate conversations led by Thomas Kruiper, Head of Communications at the ReSeT´s Polis Project, with Matt Andrews at Harvard´s Center for International Development (CID) and Leni Wild at the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) in London, who were instrumental in leading a 2014 DDD workshop and creating a DDD manifesto. Andrews´ research focuses on Problem Driven Iterative Adaptation (PDIA) in governance and policy reform. Wild is an expert on political economy and service delivery, accountability and aid, and currently leads an ODI program on the politics of service delivery.

Having worked on governance and service delivery in a wide variety of countries for many years, Andrews and Wild know the traits of traditional development thinking. Andrews´ interest in PDIA was born from his observations from working in governance, both as a researcher and as an outsider from the World Bank, in which many reform initiatives fail to deliver sustained improvements because organisations and governments focus on what policies look like rather than what they actually do. Andrews: “You see laws being passed and money being moved for a health project, but you don´t see actual nurses being hired or drugs being moved into place.”

In traditional development, solutions tend to be placed before the problems. Wild: “A lot of aid programs still tend to come in with a set of solutions and look for local groups to implement them, rather than coming in to identify who are the local reformers, who is making change happen, and how can they be supported”. Fortunately there is a growing community of people who try new things and share their experiences.

DDD, successful development, and connectivity

The people and organisations within the DDD community turn upside-down two things: they put problems before solutions, and they put local actors before outsiders. In Wild´s view, fundamentally, successful development cooperation facilitates and supports the process of a project rather than managing or dominating it. Locally led means that those people who are already there lead the project; they are in the driving seat. They identify and address problems, and they have the strongest incentives to solve them. Outsiders can be invited to give their views and share information.

The term ´local´ should be widely interpreted. Wild: “It works at the grass-roots level, but also at central governments or in the private sector. We often tend to think of locals as community leaders but it´s much wider than that.”

This diversity was reflected in the workshop too. Andrews: “All these people have framed their agendas so as to empower people rather than telling people what to do. They´ve been doing that for a long period of time. The workshop wasn´t about getting them together and saying to them that they had to do DDD, because they were the ones that are doing it.”

The DDD community also serves as a teaching tool in showing practitioners what successful development cooperation looks like, but also how to actually do it. The fifty or so public servants that take Andrews´ course at Harvard are stimulated to engage with the organisations in the DDD community and to watch the videos they post online about their methodologies.

Problem driven, locally led, and flexible strategies are not new by any means. In policymaking and development studies, voices have long preached for community driven work and against top-down approaches and blueprints. Andrews: “My sense is that when those ideas (of Hirschmann and Brinkerhoff) were coming up they were completely overwhelmed by what I would call the more engineering mindset in development, where people thought that you build governments like you build a road. For a long period development was dominated by either engineers or by very mathematics based economists.”

Today the circumstances to get like-mind souls together are easier. Andrews: “One of the things that we are trying to take advantage of, and why we had the workshop last year, and why we developed a manifesto, is that there is more connectivity between people. And our hypothesis is actually that there´s more people doing development in this way than we commonly would think about.”

Connectivity also seems to be a key to success for local actors and their projects. As Wild explained on the connectedness of a local actor in a community scorecard program in Malawi: “He understood the dynamics happening at different levels and in different areas; he was able to appraised things at the local level and say: in this community, we don’t have the right people on the ground to do what we are going to do, so we need to stop working there or we have to find a different way of working”. Putting well connected actors in the driving seat is thus essential for success.

Donors and Measuring Success

For locally led and flexible approaches to gain ground, donors have to be brought aboard too. Some donors try to lock things in at the beginning and to remove flexibility later on. Andrews: “So during and after the workshop we spent a lot of time talking about: how do you buy that flexibility later on. How do you use things like logical frameworks in more flexible ways? I think that you can use exactly the same tools, just in more flexible ways.”

Andrews does not recognise the dichotomy between inflexible donors on one side and governments and NGOs on the other. Across the board, organisations struggle to create space for more flexibility, not only on the donor side.

One of these struggles has to deal with measuring success in ways that help us understand how people learn, rather than simply looking at meaningless milestones. Wild: “Often people are stuck with a particular set of project and reporting frameworks, so all of the things they are doing that are actually making a difference – the way they are adapting, learning, or navigating local relationships – don´t get reported on. We need some kind of benchmarks to know what a genuinely locally led process looks like.”

In Andrew´s view, many policy makers underestimate the difficulty of planning in developmental environments. In a controlled and developed environment, planning a project is relatively easy; you know your objectives and you know how to fulfill and measure them. DDD practitioners know that the reality looks different: “The problem is that if development looks like going from St. Louis to the west coast in 1803, it´s a different strategy. You don´t have any roads, you don´t know where the west coast is, and you don´t know where your milestones are going to be. And if you were to lay a 2013 map onto a team and say: “Go to Albuquerque”, they would say “where´s Albuquerque?” And then on the first day, they would find out that the road to Albuquerque doesn´t exist. So you want them to be learning step by step how to get to the west-coast. So you want to be saying: “OK, when you said you were going to get to Albuquerque, what were the assumptions that you made, and what did you learn about your assumptions? What step did you take? What capacities did you build as you were moving on?” Those things are as important (or maybe more important) than the question: Did you spend the money?”

DDD in 2015

2015 is an interesting year for the development sector, in which the world awaits a new set of global commitments. Although the CID and ODI by no means have a political agenda related to the post-2015 Millennium Development Goals, the DDD community does realise that ideas need to be cultivated, marketed, and taught. Each organisation has to look at itself and contribute to change in its own way. The website and the manifesto just help facilitate it. Wild: “We don´t want to be sitting here in 2030 or 2040 saying: Don’t we need to do things differently?”

The manifesto currently has a community of over 400 signatories from 60 countries, with more organisations (Including ReSeT and its Polis Project) joining every week. Besides people meeting in small groups, the CID and ODI frequently organise events and publish research on DDD approaches to development cooperation. The recently published DDD website also includes a blog, forum, and videos of organisations in the community. Additionally, ODI has just launched a report called Adapting Development, which picks up on many of the themes discussed in the interview.

Q&A with Ivanka Puigdueta | Head of Polis Development

Posted by The Polis Team / 2nd February 2015 / Categories: Polis / Tags: International Development Cooperation, The Polis / -

Ivanka Puigdueta’s background lies with environmental sciences and issues surrounding climate change and pollution (Université de Rouen, 2007). After working as a lab-scientist for several years, she decided to mix her expertise with social and developmental issues, studying International Relations and African Studies at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. Her focus has since been on development issues in sub-Saharan Africa, with research and consultancy in Guinea-Bissau.

Did your experience in Guinea-Bissau lead you to The Polis?

Yes, it very much influenced my thinking. In Guinea-Bissau I had the chance to discover all kinds of different projects financed and organised through international cooperation programs. Observe them was interesting, often encouraging, but also painful at times. A lot of effort goes into improving social and economic conditions in that country, with amazing professionals- both local and expatriates- working on important and difficult challenges. But unfortunately there were also a lot of things that went wrong, often caused by systemic failure. Like most people employed locally in the development sector, it made me feel a strong urge to find more effective ways to have an impact. It was obvious that work needed to be much more locally focused; that was one thing that was crystal clear.

So what do you like most about The Polis, when you look back at your personal experiences?

The Polis method answered my doubts (and ambition) about how to turn international cooperation into a local led path. That was the very first thing that attracted me about The Polis and the one that still amazes me. It uses a radically local led approach, and it ends the often well intended but ultimately mistaken interventionist impulses. It recognises the importance of local populations to choosing and designing the projects and their impact, and also the ways in which these projects will be done. External intervention only enters in the system when it is requested by local people and according to the basic terms they themselves set.

Could you please describe your role in The Polis? What do you do exactly?

As Head of Development my role is to design, improve and implement different aspects of the Polis model. Our model depends on various local and global actors, each with a specific role in the process of creating Local Led Connections. It is my role to develop each step in the process, starting at the local idea and finishing with a connection. I focus on understanding what makes local led processes successful and adapting this knowledge to different situations and realities.

And in doing so, which types of organisations inspire you?

There are many. For example, PUM’s expert services to local entrepreneurs, Peace Direct’s work with local peace building initiatives, or the BoP Innovation Center’s market inclusion methods. But it is not only from the development sector that The Polis takes its inspiration. The Polis is also inspired by many private sector initiatives and activities; we don’t just look at traditional development actors. To summarise in general terms: we take inspiration from what we observe works for people when it comes to connecting local to global and vice versa.

So how is The Polis different from these and other development projects?

We are not a development project. The Polis model simply connects local ideas to the resources they need. We don´t offer money and we don’t tell people what to do; there´s no developmental agenda. We just offer local ideas a platform so they can connect with organisations and expertise to bring their ideas to life.

Typical development projects work the other way around; external ideas are created before locals come into play. Even development projects that use local led strategies get the order wrong; they don’t impose ideas, but they do still approach carefully selected locals with a bag of money in their hand and.

Can you expand on that?

Typically, projects either try to “pick winners” or look to create change based on specific political or ideological values. Humans tend to have difficulties in controlling our impulse to guide others towards what we think is right. At The Polis we believe that this filtering is not compatible with what we understand by “local led”. It is not up to us to decide what a bad or a good idea is. Even those organisations that actually put locals behind the steering wheel fail to see this. Yes, they motivate local actors to identify their own problems and to find their own way, but they still put locals in charge of spending previously lined-up money.

And how does the Polis method deal with that problem?

We do two things: the first thing that The Polis does to turn the cycle around is that local initiatives come before any money or solutions come into play. The second one is that global actors don´t select local partners; local actors select the global partners they want to work with. This forces global actors to truly serve local agendas. After all, you can´t give initiative; it´s something people take. The only role of The Polis is to look for partners willing to support local initiatives. Global actors should see The Polis as a gateway to local opportunities, while for local actors The Polis is a bridge between their ambitions and the global tools they need.

What does that bridge look like on the ground? And how do people find it?

Through Local Connectors (LCs); LCs are trained local Polis representatives who listen to local initiatives and make them visible for the global community, something they typically lack. So LCs are in contact with local individuals and groups and gather their project ideas and requests, only making sure that proposals are legal and feasible; they do not impose or suggest ideas; they do not write proposals. They simply make sure that initiatives are sincere and complete before they are presented to potential partners, and then they introduce these initiatives into the Polis platform.

What will The Polis look like by late 2015?

At the end of 2015 I want to see Local Connectors becoming integrated in our human infrastructure, and actively working with Connected Local Communities (CLCs) to bring local project ideas to the Polis platform and the global community. I also expect the Polis team to acquire a better understanding of local-global dynamics through the interaction with local actors, global partners, and other local led initiatives in our network. In doing so, I am convinced The Polis can contribute to making local led development cooperation more successful and widespread.

Last question: what are your ambitions with respect to your own future? Do you plan to go back to Africa, to Guinea-Bissau for The Polis perhaps?

Going back to Guinea-Bissau is definitely on the cards, but it may have to be to simply visit. The Polis doesn’t let non-locals work locally like that; it’s not the way we do things. A pity.

Polis Paper | Turning Aid into Effective Cooperation: Connecting Local to Global

Posted by The Polis Team / 26th January 2015 / Categories: Polis, Reports / Tags: Connectivity, Development Cooperation, NGOs / -

A Polis Publication by Balder Hageraats and Isadora Loreto.

Instruments based on traditional development aid-thinking suffer from inherent flaw: their focus on governments and institutions rather than people. This leads to unsatisfactory outcomes. International cooperation is supposed to be about local actors and global actors coming together to achieve a common goal, typically improving the lives of people. In reality, the development sector is often too inward looking, institutionalised and unilateral to create such cooperative relations between global and local actors. In this essay we propose a model in which there exists direct and true cooperation between donors and local actors. It considers any further institutional or NGO support as service providers within that cooperative alliance between funders and populations.

Full PDF

Discover The Polis: When ideas turn into reality

Posted by The Polis Team / 17th November 2014 / Categories: Polis, ReSeT News / -

The world is full of amazing ideas. It is also full of tools and resources to make those happen. The problem is bringing these two sets together: the world is not always very good at doing that yet. This is especially true in economically developing societies where access to global services and opportunities can be hard to find. In fact, it is also harder than it seems even in European or North American countries. Despite technological miracles and globalisation, there remains a lot of human potential to strengthen lives and livelihoods that goes unseen by those who can provide the services to turn people’s ideas into successful reality.

This is where our work comes in: The Polis connects the ideas with the tools.

Since this summer we have a full time team- with further support from other ReSeT researchers and our wider network- working to bring the project to life. The model is very simple in both its basic idea as well as its execution: it connects ideas from people to the resources needed to turn those ideas into reality. Specifically, it connects local ambitions in developing communities to global expertise and funding. There is no complicated framework, and no political agenda. The Polis connects demand and supply, and that’s about it.

We call such connections LLCs (“Local-led Connections”), reflecting the fact that it is always about local people who demand services. This happens through human infrastructure: a representative (“Local Connector”, or LC) listens to local communities and people, and takes the received information back into The Polis. There, people with access to global resources and networks (rather unoriginally called “Global Connectors”, or GC) offer the resources needed to make the ambition work. Once they have come back with sufficient alternatives, the initial local actor chooses their preferred solution. After that moment, the Polis’ work ends and all that is left is a relationship between local client and global supplier(s). Naturally we will continue to keep an eye out, ensuring that we will learn and grow through practical application.

There are of course a number of details that we are skipping here: where do Local and Global Connectors come from? How do they interact? How do you select connected communities? Where do you get the money from? How did you come up with such utter genius? You will just have to trust us that we have the details covered. Right now we only want to give you a general idea of where we are going with this.

Simple and effective, The Polis is an outcome focused method that brings together actors that complement and need each other, one type local and the other global. It does this through simple communication flows with basic online connectivity to support communications and information exchange.

The strength of The Polis lies in its dogged focus on being local-led. Unlike many developmental projects, the agenda is at no point set by global actors or large organisations. The Polis mechanism ensures that resulting projects always respond to local ideas, and never to global ideology or interests. Moreover, overheads and organisational pressures are minimal, and the model exhibits no external imposition of any kind: ideas are local, decisions are local, evaluations are local. Benefits are global.

(Editor’s note: Our marketing department worked very hard on this local/global slogan, so be prepared to find it scattered across all our publications from now on.)

Impact is global not just because the model is so simple and easy to implement, and therefore can be replicated in any potential community worldwide. It also benefits everyone involved. This is not just the group of local people who are in charge of their projects, but also the global actors who compete to supply their services and expertise, as well as observers of Polis dynamics interested in understanding underlying dynamics.

The group of interested observers would of course also include us, the ReSeT team that is so enthusiastically developing the Polis at the moment. By seeing what kind of activities and relationships grow out of the resulting dynamics, we get invaluable insights into local-global dynamics. This is one of the fundamental questions facing human society worldwide, and we, the Polis team, will have first rank seats. It allows us to better understand the nature of our work- international relations and cooperation- as well as further strengthen the method of the Polis itself.

If you would like to know more about The Polis, or if you would like to contribute ideas or connections, please contact us at info@resetweb.org.

Looking forward to hearing from you,

The Polis Team

An expert opinion on development: Dr. Stephan Klingebiel

Posted by The Polis Team / 17th November 2014 / Categories: Opinion, Polis / -

Dr. Stephan Klingebiel is head of the department for Bi- and Multilateral Development Cooperation at the German Development Institute (DIE). His work areas include aid effectiveness and the political economy of aid, international cooperation and global public goods as well as the nexus of security and development. He is also a regular visiting professor at Stanford University.

Joanna Klever – Head of Communications at The Polis Project: Could you please tell us your experiences with, and current connection to, the development sector?

Stephan Klingebiel: I have been working on development issues since my years as a student at university. That was still the time of the classical North-South divide – just think about the Brandt Report in 1980 which was written by an independent international commission.

In my professional carrier I research development topics, teach courses on the subject and am also involved in policy advice, for example, at the level of the European Commission, the European Parliament, the OECD and the German and other governments. In addition, I gained much experience as a development practitioner when I was head of the German Development Bank (KFW) office in Rwanda for four years.

In terms of main areas of research, I especially deal with topics from three perspectives – quite often with overlaps: First, I like to study the basics of foreign aid and the political economy aspects of aid. For example: What is the rationale of donors in giving foreign aid? What are the unintended consequences of aid? Increasingly, I find myself dealing with the broader question of how international cooperation can address global challenges more adequately. Secondly, I have a strong focus on governance and conflict issues: How do development actors interact with non-state armed groups, for instance – even if they claim that they are not in contact with any of them? Thirdly, my main area of expertise is related to the sub-Saharan African region. I am not only very familiar with several countries of the region but also with regional and continental institutions. Having said that, I also work on countries outside the African region.

JK: How do you define successful international development?

SK: International cooperation can serve quite different objectives. However, we are increasingly seeing a need to contribute to the provision of global public goods or to avoid ‘global public bads’. Thus, cooperation is a way of organising collective action at an international level. From what we know, it is not at all easy to provide incentives in favour of global collective action and to avoid difficulties like ‘free riding’.

JK: What – in your opinion – are the biggest failures and successes of development cooperation thus far?

SK: In a general sense it is interesting to see that development actors have built up quite substantial knowledge about ‘best practises’ and ‘good aid’. This has led not least to the aid effectiveness agenda – including the Paris Declaration. At the same time, however, we know that donors have only been willing to implement their own agenda to a limited extent. For example, the fragmented landscape of donor approaches has to do with interests such as visibility. If you go to a country like Myanmar where donors have only started to work fairly recently, you will find strong motivations for each donor to rush in, rather than following best practices.

JK: In the “Beyond Aid” series of papers, the need to reform aid and transform development cooperation is recurrent. Could you briefly explain why this change is essential in the current context?

SK: In the face of a changing global context, development cooperation needs to redefine its role. The phrase “Beyond Aid” sums up the pressure to innovate as well as to develop ideas for reform. Conventional development issues still need to be addressed, as goals such as the eradication of poverty have not been achieved. At the same time, the development landscape is changing radically. Over the past few decades, the number of aid-receiving countries has decreased sharply. By 2030 it is estimated that another 28 countries with an aggregate population of 2 billion will no longer be eligible for development cooperation. Other fundamental features are also changing. Aid no longer serves only to reduce poverty; it is also being used to tackle challenges such as climate change, inequality and insecurity.

The “Beyond Aid” debate is quite diverse. It is about any actual or apparent reform in this policy area. Nonetheless, some dimensions have become obvious. The transformation is specifically evident in connection with actors, finance, regulation and knowledge. In our papers we discuss those four dimensions in detail.

In our view, the debate may lead to two different options or models. In a first model, development cooperation would focus on the steadily shrinking group of poor countries. Poverty reduction would remain the primary goal. […]

In a second model, development cooperation would become part of international cooperation in general. It would help to address challenges that many countries have in common. Such challenges include rapid urbanisation, demographic change, and the provision of global public goods such as the protection of the climate, biodiversity, food security and the prevention of pandemics. While poverty reduction would remain a major goal in this scenario, it would no longer be the main focus. Moreover, distinguishing ‘developed’ from ‘developing’ countries would no longer be crucial. On the contrary, policies would concern not only fragile and conflict-torn states but middle- and high-income countries as well. Development cooperation would thus contribute to collective action at the global level.

JK: With the post 2015 approaching, developing countries are asking to have their voices heard more in the process. How do you envision their participation with developed countries? What do developing nations need most to achieve true partnership, rather than the perceived imposition?

SK: I think we really need to see a universal development agenda. The current MDG agenda is unbalanced because it is mainly focused on development challenges in poor countries. However, an agenda with a universal character would address development need in all regions and countries. Just think about CO₂ emissions in industrialised countries or inequality issues not only in developing regions but also in the USA, Germany or Spain. If the main momentum of the future agenda is to be its universal character, developing countries will play a much stronger role, for example, in the implementation of the agenda.

JK: Envisioning true cooperation, how can local populations be more included in the reformed development cooperation system? How can local development be supported?

SK: In my view the principle of ‘using country systems’ is an important starting point for this issue. The best way for a local population to contribute through local NGOs and CSOs is not the isolated approach to aid. Instead, we need to focus on issues like: What is the role of local NGOs in the budget planning and execution process of district X or Y? This is the key question. In the best case, donors would use precisely those national mechanisms. If this is not possible, for instance because of poor governance or a conflict situation in a country, at least transparency is a crucial factor for the local population. How much money is being provided by a donor? How much money is really reaching the district? How much money is paid for overheads and consultants? Those are important aspects of information which are required if the local population is to be involved.

JK: You state in your “Beyond Aid” papers series: “Knowledge to drive the new development agenda and to meet partner countries’ differentiated needs is becoming more and more specialised and is generated by many institutions that are outside the realm of development cooperation. The challenge is to identify and share that knowledge and apply it to specific contexts.” How can this challenge be met with new technologies?

SK: New technologies are indeed key for all aspects of knowledge. Whether the focus is on updating farming methods, improving public finance or taking action to mitigate climate change, knowledge is the key to development. The transfer of knowledge is likely to become increasingly dissociated from financial transfers and technical advice.

JK: New alternatives and approaches are developed in the sector, which aim at turning aid into effective cooperation. How can they be heard and effectively contribute to today’s development discourse?

SK: Results-based approaches are not a ‘silver bullet’ to development cooperation but rather a fairly innovative way of how to provide aid. Those approaches aim to identify outputs or outcomes that can be measured and quantified, that is, results that can be directly linked to development activities. The key feature is the link between the aid intervention and strong incentives to encourage results. Not least NGOs are increasingly exploring those instruments, for example in the educational sector in Tanzania.

JK: How do you envision development cooperation in twenty years? Will it still exist, and what will its activities look like?

SK: I think it is quite likely that we will see two parallel mid-term trends: First, development cooperation will still exist for a shrinking number of poor countries. Aid will remain important in those cases, in support not only of the social sectors but also of other prime infrastructures. Emerging countries will also contribute concessional resources in support of development objectives. Secondly, we will see an increasing demand for new types of international cooperation which is different from development cooperation – just think about the quite different rationale in the case of Ebola. Those areas of international cooperation will need to address global challenges, for instance in terms of security, climate change and health.

This is the first edition of our new series of interviews with experts from the field of dcvelopment cooperation. Within this series The Polis team will explore different themes and perspectives on international development cooperation. These interviews will appear in our bimonthly newsletter as well as on this website.

Q&A with Balder Hageraats | General Coordinator of The Polis

Posted by The Polis Team / 17th November 2014 / Categories: Polis, ReSeT News / Tags: International Development Cooperation, The Polis / -

Could you please describe your role in The Polis? What do you do exactly?

I am the “General Coordinator” of The Polis Project, which means that it is my role to ensure that the rest of the team has the necessary conditions and right focus to be able to do their job. This means that my day to day work consists of giving support and feedback to my colleagues’ activities, and providing overall guidance and leadership with respect to the team’s objectives and agendas.

What does the Polis team look like?

We currently have four departments within the project: Polis Development- i.e. the strengthening of our model and its applications-, Research and Publications, Communications, and Fundraising, each with a full time person in charge. We then have dedicated subteams working on practical issues. These range from things such as model implementation and networking to analysis and publications. And, of course, the Polis team is supported by the wider ReSeT organisation.

And what about partner organisations or experts?

ReSeT has a wide range of existing partner organisations and external experts, some of which have already been involved in aspects of The Polis. Then again, it is early days and we are currently mostly focusing on further developing our local networks (The Polis is all about local connections, after all) in selected countries, and engaging potential “global resources” for the Polis, i.e. organisations and experts that can deliver services to meet local demands.

Where does the original idea for the Polis come from?

ReSeT itself is a relatively young organisation, founded in 2011, but it employs people with decades of experience in international cooperation and relations. One of the major issues that we encounter time and time again in development projects is that energy, time, effort and money tend to flow towards activities designed by international actors, typically headquartered in Western capitals, rather than towards ideas and solutions provided by local individuals or communities. Sure they are occasionally consulted, and may have some influence over outcomes, but the basis of international cooperation remains firmly seated in INGO boardrooms, government offices and transnational dynamics. Local populations simply do not have the systemic clout necessary to set agendas. This is a perverse problem and a fundamental flaw in the sector. It leads to sector dynamics that are on paper focused on so-called “beneficiaries”, but are in actuality serving the sector itself, rather than local communities. Administrative necessity trumps idealism any day of the week, unfortunately.

These observations made us go back to basic questions: what is needed for local and global actors to cooperate effectively to achieve common goals? What are the necessary decision mechanisms for that to happen? How do the various involved actors communicate, and what do they need to operate successfully?

The rather obvious answer is that projects designed and led by those who reap the benefits tend to work. On the other hand, projects that are designed and led by those who do not directly benefit from its outcomes do not tend to work. That observation then leads to the challenge of making sure that local people are in charge of projects, even if they typically require more powerful international dynamics and actors to be involved. These are often still needed to provide necessary capital or political cover. The Polis is our answer to that challenge.

Could you describe The Polis in your own words?

The Polis connects those with ideas to those with the tools to turn those ideas into reality. It does so by collecting ideas locally, collecting tools globally, and then matching them. Crucially, it does so in a way which always puts those with the idea- and who benefit directly from its implementation- in charge. They are the ones who make the decisions, while the Polis simply provides a matchmaking service.

On the website and elsewhere, the Polis team uses quite a few concepts that readers may be unfamiliar with. Is the model complex?

On the contrary, it is simple and very easy to understand. The three concepts to know are:

1. Local-Led Connections: This is the basic pillar of The Polis. It is the connection between local people and organisations and experts that support their projects.

2. Local Connectors: They maintain the Local-Led Connection, i.e. they bring local information to the Polis network and vice versa.

3. Global Connectors: People who have knowledge or networks to bring organisations and experts into The Polis.

That’s all really. Everything else about our model is just details on how local and global connectors operate. Those details would require more time to list and explain, of course, but they are not necessary to understand the essence of what we do.

What impact do you think the Polis will eventually have?

It is difficult to answer this with numbers or other concrete specifics, but given the simple and highly replicable nature of the model, in general terms I would expect at least two important outcomes: the implementation of a significant number of ideas and initiatives which otherwise would not have been able to come to fruition, as well as a strengthened understanding of, and approach to, international cooperation in the 21st century.

The former is obviously important because it directly, and positively, affects people’s lives in the here and now. The latter is important if you, like us at ReSeT, believe that one of the main challenges facing our world today is how to effectively connect the world’s abundant resources to human creativity and endeavour. We live in a globalised world with virtually endless technological and financial possibilities anywhere. The issue is how to harness such incredible opportunities. This question makes international cooperation more relevant than ever, and will require new and practical solutions. We believe that The Polis is one of those.

What makes The Polis different from other initiatives that tackle similar issues?

The Polis team continuously learns from many amazing projects that are being developed at the moment. 2014 is a very exciting time to work on these issues; new technologies and globalisation spur on creativity and activity never before seen in our field of work. In that sense, there are many aspects of The Polis that are not unique to our model. A lot of good work in similar vein is already being done, especially at a relatively small scale. These range from the Siriolli Institute to more technology-based initiatives related to fundraising (crowdfunding, such as Kiva) and, for example, initiatives such as Elva. However, what is unique about The Polis is the effectively simple method in which local people are in charge throughout the process, and decide over their own future, covering the entire process from basic idea to eventual outcome. Then again, I’d be delighted to find out we weren’t unique, of course.

How do you envision the Polis ten years from now?

A vibrant community of local and global people and organisations being connected to bountiful resources, allowing local ideas and initiatives to flourish like never before. If this- together with similar initiatives elsewhere- pushes the wider international cooperation sector towards being true and effective service providers, all the better.

From our own think-tank perspective, we expect The Polis to be a source of information and knowledge on the realities of local-global relationships. Such knowledge will become ever more important in international affairs and in facing the great challenges of our time. We at ReSeT, like any think tank, are very excited to be able to play a role in that.

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