Haiti – Dominican Republic - Disasters and Conflicts - UNEP

elating to the trade in commodities that are setdown in the Multilateral Environment Agreementsamong other laws. The unit works very closely withother ministries and in particular with the Ministryof Environment.3.5 Transboundary cooperationIn the past, both governments have tended toignore the border zone as a focus for development,unless their attention was drawn to it bya security issue. However, that attitude has nowchanged. Both governments are concernedabout the potential for instability in the area andincreasingly cooperate with one another formallyand informally.Although they are by no means equal in level,scale, funding, continuity or impact, the four mostimportant transboundary mechanisms identifiedby the assessment team are:• The Joint Dominican-Haitian Bilateral Commission.• Border development agencies.• Local level cooperation platforms.• The Parliamentary border commission.The Joint Dominican-Haitian BilateralCommission (“Commission mixtebinationale”)The commission was created in 1996 and is theonly existing bilateral and political decision-makingforum (chaired by the two Presidents in plenarysession and by relevant ministers when thematiccommissions meet), which address all themesrelated to cooperation (including the environment)between the two countries.In a positive development, the presidents of thetwo countries have met several times in 2012, andhave signed accords dealing with border securityand trade, the most significant of which are:––Memorandum of understanding between theministries of planning.––Memorandum of understanding on bordersecurity.––The Bolivarian fund for solidarity with Haiti.––Memorandum of understanding on crossbordertransportation.In Dominican Republic, the Joint Commission hasan Executive Secretary who works under the aegisof the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, is funded by theEU, and has the mandate to propose, design,formulate and channel funding to projects. Thereis no such office in Haiti.Border development agenciesBoth countries have development agenciesthat deal exclusively with the border area. Inthe Dominican Republic there is the GeneralDirectorate for Border Development (DGDF), andin Haiti there is the Transboundary DevelopmentCommission (Fonds interministériel pour ledéveloppement transfrontalier).The two agencies are very different. The Dominicanentity has staff working all along the border,whereas the Commission in Haiti for the last fewyears consisted of just one man with little or nofinancial means and has now been closed. TheHaitian Government plans to replace the commissionwith a national council that will coordinatethe management of transboundary issues calledthe Conseil national de coordination de la gestiontransfrontalière. So at the time of writing the DGDFdoes not have a Haitian counterpart but despitethat it does assist Haitian border communities onan ad hoc basis. 176Local level cooperation platformsAt the local level, the mayors and other authoritieshave daily and often very constructive contact withtheir counterparts on the other side of the border,defusing tensions and settling disputes. One suchexample can be found in case study 2.These relationships are mostly informal but thereare some more institutionalized structures likethe Association of the Mayors of the Border, themembers of which live right along the Haitianborder, or the Intermunicipal TransboundaryCommittee, which was created when mayorsfrom Elias Piña province (Dominican Republic)and Plateau Central (Haiti) started working togetherto find and solve shared problems. One morenotable example of institutionalized co-operationis that of fishermen who have formed associationsin Pedernales (Dominican Republic) and Anseà-Pitre(Haiti). That phenomenon is dealt with inchapter 7.44 Haiti – Dominican Republic: Environmental challenges in the border zone