MedBEESinessHubs project focuses on the development of business and regional clusters under the thematic objective of the honeybee and its products. A key prerequisite for achieving this objective is the use of well structured, highly democratic and bottom-up approaches which can bring stakeholders together and create strategies that are based on consensus parameters.

Capitalising on ‘Structured Democratic Dialogue – SDD’ and the success story of ‘Melissochoria’ developed under the Interreg MED 2014-2020 funded project MEDFEST, the steppingstone has been set for the creation of the MedBEESinessHubs regional clusters. ‘Melissochoria’ –villages of honey- is a cluster of villages in rural Cyprus branded around the honeybee and its products.  

The Capitalisation process started with the ‘train-the-trainer’ course, a mixture of online and physical presence workshops. Over a period of 3 months and through a series of 4 online workshops, 15 trainers across the five MedBEESinessHubs regions of Cyprus, Egypt, Italy, Lebanon and Palestine, were introduced to the concept and ideology behind the Structured Democratic Dialogue. Afterwards, they gathered in Nicosia (Cyprus) in late June 2022, together with other key stakeholders from their regions, where they had the opportunity to engage in two full days of highly interactive sessions and experience first-hand the Structured Democratic Dialogue (SDD) dynamic. Under the professional guidance and fun approach of two highly SDD experienced trainers from Cyprus, trainers and key stakeholders from all five Mediterranean regions of the MedBEESinessHubs partnership, such as bee-keepers’ representatives, local community development and tourism decision makers, were triggered with a ‘Question’, that is a common area of concern, and built upon this into developing their own set of strategies and methodologies, identifying along the way practical solutions addressing their ’Question’, i.e. common problem.

“The beauty of Structured Democratic Dialogue is that you start off with independent and sometimes contradictory understandings of a single problem, and you end up with practical solutions and common approaches how to go about solving your problem; solutions owned and shared by all”, Demetra Palaonda, MedBEESinessHubs project coordinator said. “SDD can build a consensus within a group of people with different backgrounds and beliefs, break down mistrust and assist us in collaborating and collectively bringing a real change in our regions”.

Over the months of July and August 2022, the 15 trained trainers and stakeholders from Egypt, Italy, Lebanon and Palestine, using their acquired knowledge and experience from Nicosia, brought together a total of 95 stakeholders in their own series of regional interactive SDD workshops, all with the aim of setting the foundation of five clusters based on the theme of the honeybee and its products in their partner regions. This foundation will lead towards the building of the MedBEESinessHubs across five Mediterranean regions.

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