Our Vision

 Our History

During decades of experience in the development sector, ReSeT experts have come across many innovative and valuable local ideas that lacked access to partners and opportunities needed to turn their objectives into reality. At the same time, large amounts of developmental and other resources turn out to be ineffective during the implementation phase. These observations led ReSeT to lay the groundwork for Polis Project in 2013. Since then, ReSeT has steadily increased its resources and work on the model, and since July 2014 has a full time team. After fully developing the method and expanding our local networks in a number of countries, the Polis is now ready to start pilot projects.

 Our Vision and Mission

Projects that are not locally led do not work. The Polis sees that development cooperation works best when local actors are in charge of shaping their own future. They know what they need, but simply lack access to resources. So why not provide that access? The mission of the Polis Project is to fulfil the ambitions of local groups in the countries in which we work. We strive to enable local communities to design and carry out their own development projects, without outside interference or top-down approaches. In doing so, we further understanding about local-led development.

 Our Community

The Polis project is part of a growing community that recognises the need for local led projects. Networks and organisations which share the same vision of a need for new approaches, but are all singular in the needs they address and the solution they propose have emerged. The Polis is a member of the Doing Development Differently (DDD) initiative, which is supported by the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) in London and Harvard´s Center for International Development (CID). ReSeT is also supporting the Local First campaign initiated by Peace Direct. The Polis team is currently developing partnerships with various complementary organisations such as ALDA and likeminded foundations.

 Polis Services

The Polis team specialises in local-global issues. Our experts have worked on various issues in the development sector and deliver evaluation and research reports, local-global consultancy, and policy papers, among others. For more information, please contact our research and development department.

 The Polis Team