Welcome to the website of the Beekeeping Network North-South (BNNS)
a network to promote beekeeping as a development tool
Coming together is a beginning, (bee) keeping together is progress, working together is success

For most beekeepers in developing countries, beekeeping is a supplementary activity and therefore often only plays a secondary role in development policies by countries and donor agencies. This leaves its true contribution to the rural economy undervalued and not considered meritoriously. In many countries there is no appropriate institutional support for the beekeeping sector. In many regions that are propitious to the development of beekeeping, the activity is under-utilised and village beekeepers more often than not receive little or no attention in public policies.

Higher visibility and attention to beekeeping as a development tool will bring not only benefits to beekeepers but also to rural populations as a whole (still more than 70% of the world’s poor) and will contribute directly and indirectly to sustainability and food security.

Most beekeeping initiatives, both public and private, are small, dispersed, short-term and a more or less important add-on to other activities. Collaborative efforts, mostly local, exist as do rare synergetic effects. It is not unrare to find several beekeeping programmes within the same area or shortly after each other. Experiences are not shared and mistakes repeated. Most efforts are not part of or supported by a larger policy or strategic approach or share a common perspective. Thus potential benefits of integration across the whole value chains are missed.

To more effectively use limited resources and capacities and obtain more sustainable results from beekeeping initiatives, the BNNS aims at:

- creating higher awareness among governmental and non-governmental aid agencies on beekeeping as a multi-purpose tool in rural development and as a sustainable business and livelihood opportunity;

- Facilitate information sharing, including reporting on concrete success stories illustrating how beekeeping contributes to rural development and food security;

- increase access to knowledge of existing expertise, experience and resources;

- build an open network of initiatives in beekeeping development, on national and international levels, both in the Northern and Southern hemispheres.