A taste of honey on Hispaniola.

• Author: Mendez, Riamny
• Position: INTER-AMERICAN SYSTEM - Dominican Republic and Haiti

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Germinia Mercedes, a smiling matriarch in her sixties, shows visitors her small apiary, surrounded by flowering lipia and cambronal trees. Their sweet scent is heightened in the heat of Hispaniola, the island shared by the Dominican Republic and Haiti.

One of four women participating in La Fronteriza Association of Beekeepers, Mercedes is a leader in the rural community +of Los Miche, located in the Dominican province of Dajabon--the site of the largest binational market on the island. Four years ago, Mercedes decided to get into the beekeeping business to supplement her family's income. "I've learned a lot from these little creatures, and now I have my steady clients," she says with pride, as she uncovers a honeycomb. Thanks to La Fronteriza, she says, she has improved her techniques for raising bees and gained access to loans to buy modern hives that can produce more honey. Although she shares other economic endeavors with her husband, a former military man named Juan Rojas, the bees are hers alone. "I think he's afraid of them," she says with a grin.

The president of La Fronteriza, Santiago de Rosa--better known as Chago--admires Mercedes, his friend and business partner, for her enthusiasm and capacity for work. She taught him that beekeeping is not just "a man's thing" and paved the way for other women, no small feat in this region where machismo rules.

Chago is also proud of the progress La Fronteriza has made. Four years ago, despite trying to work together, the beekeepers were dispersed in their efforts and were unable to improve production with their rudimentary hives. That has changed since La Fronteriza began receiving support from a program called Fwontye Nou-Nuestra Frontera ("our border," in Creole and Spanish) which is run by the Pan American Development Foundation (PADF), an affiliate of the OAS.

In 2003, PADF received funds from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to implement a socioeconomic development program in the border communities of Haiti and the Dominican Republic. The program works on several fronts to strengthen civil society groups, mitigate conflict at the local level, and create "cross-border bridges" to foster harmonious relationships among entities on both sides of the border, maintaining respect for the identities and legal systems in each country.

The network of local organizations participating in Fwontye Nou-Nuestra Frontera has grown to include more than 40 groups on both sides of the island. This effort has received support from public and private institutions as well as international organizations. It has also helped both governments strengthen their border policies.

"PADF's work of bringing together and strengthening groups along the border has been very important," says the Dominican government's director of planning at the General Office of Border Development, Jose Luis Sosias. He also points to the organization's efforts to put the needs of the Dominican border community on the national agenda.

Daniel O'Neil, PADF country director in the Dominican Republic, explained that to...