We’ve spent nearly six years wrestling with development in the Haitian-Dominican borderlands. We’ve made some big mistakes and had some big successes. As we begin sharing what we know of the borderlands, it seemed appropriate to start with our lessons learned.

The most important lesson is that both countries view their borders and development in the borderlands very differently. Descriptions that work on one side of the border do not work on the other.

As Haiti has emerged from twenty years of political instability and economic decline, the Haitian government has prioritized developing the country’s borderlands and improving border management as one of the keys to its economic progress. Haiti’s political stability and economic progress has created a window of opportunity for the Dominican Republic to work with Haiti to improve cross-border relations and strengthen their economic ties.

On the Dominican side, the borderlands are an area of stubborn poverty. Since the area has relatively few economic opportunities, the Dominican population has been steadily declining. The government presence and control over the border is weak. However, the opportunities that exist on the Dominican side are still better than what is available on the Haitian side. Therefore, due to the low population densities and the weak government control, Haitians continue to move into the Dominican borderlands creating a perceived threat to Dominican national sovereignty. On the Haitian side, the border holds significant economic and developmental opportunities. Although the border region had been historically ignored, the current Haitian government has declared this area to be a priority development area and is working to provide the infrastructure to allow the local population to take advantage of these opportunities.

There are three general lessons that we have learned through implementing this program:

1. Mutual mistrust and language barriers have greatly hampered development in both countries borderlands: both countries have ignored their cross-border opportunities and treated their border region as if it were the end of the world rather than an important commercial intersection.
2. Beyond the issue of mistrust, poor infrastructure and non-tariff barriers are the greatest hurdles to increasing cross-border trade: Although Haiti and the Dominican Republic are each other’s second largest market for agricultural and nationally manufactured goods, the access roads to the border are in bad condition, both countries customs and inspection facilities are terribly outdated, and neither country has laws that permit imports across the land border.
3. Poverty and increasing Haitian population on both sides of the border are the greatest sources of conflict between the two countries: Dominicans are out-migrating from their border region due to the lack of economic opportunities while Haitians are moving from other poorer areas of Haiti to the border region and across the border.

For someone looking to work in the borderlands, we make the following recommendations:

1. Cross-border projects must have equal staffing from both countries and should have additional staffing from other countries. It is critical that projects model the cross-border collaboration that they are trying to promote. Not only does this provide a good example for the project beneficiaries, but it also allows the program implementer to learn to work through the same issues faced by the beneficiaries. The additional third country nationals can provide a balanced perspective to the national views of the program staff.
2. Since both Haiti and the Dominican Republic have strikingly different needs, the specific program activities in each country will be different. However, the program needs to create opportunities for cross-border collaboration and meetings.
3. The windows of opportunities for cross-border collaboration open and shut based on larger national events—changes in government, negative news stories, high level binational visits, etc. Program implementation therefore needs to be nimble enough to take advantage of opportunities as they appear.
4. Work in a border region is very politically sensitive. It is therefore very important for the implementer to build a broad coalition both locally in the border region and nationally to support the work.  Interventions in the border region that do not involve the cross border communities can aggravate differences and unintentionally create greater tensions.

In the areas of agricultural production and cross-border trade, the most promising areas include:

• Haitian agriculture is extremely rudimentary, undercapitalized, and focused on small agricultural plots. The needs of the Haitian farmers are enormous. The most practical work involves financing small scale agricultural infrastructure (market access roads, irrigation pumps and canals, rice and cassava mills, and storage silos) and providing microcredit to farmers and merchants. On a secondary level, the Haitian farmers need assistance in moving beyond traditional agriculture and introducing fertilizer, pesticides, vaccines, and improved seed and animal varieties.

• Dominican agriculture in the borderlands is much more developed than its Haitian counterpart, but still very rudimentary. The main needs are better access to credit, improved feeder roads, and technical assistance. Given that the Dominican borderlands have less rainfall and are more distant from the main processing areas than much of the rest of the country, it is especially important that the region have good access to agricultural inputs and infrastructure to allow it to remain competitive for agricultural production.

• Cross-border trade had flourished over the last fifteen years as both Haitians and Dominicans took advantage of laissez-faire policies towards cross-border trade. However, as both governments have tightened control over the border and as Haiti has begun adopting a policy similar to that of the Dominican government towards discouraging imports and promoting national production, cross-border trade may decline. The challenge is therefore to help both countries to develop clear policies towards the border and guiding their neighbor in understanding these changes. Secondly, the two countries need to be able to better share information to reduce smuggling of goods, drugs, and weapons.

The Dominican Republic will not treat Haiti as an equal partner until Haiti escapes from its economic and political crisis. We believe that the Haitian borderlands hold an important key to escaping from Haiti’s crisis. Residents of the Haitian borderlands have seen the progress made by their neighbor and are ready to copy it. They have access to jobs and markets that don’t exist elsewhere. We believe that the Haitian borderlands are fertile grounds for planting the seeds of Haiti’s future. Equally important, the poverty in the Dominican borderlands could be dramatically reduced with a minimum of investment. Development in the Dominican borderlands is easier than in the rest of the Dominican countryside. We believe that developing the island is best done from the border outwards.

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