Our program
Over the last few years, we have consolidated our programming in Madagascar around strategic partnerships aimed at supporting communities and civil society organizations (activist networks, monitoring bodies, etc.) with trained local facilitators who help them organize themselves around issues related to natural resources and their environment.
Our approach emphasizes communities’ ownership of their own development through a process of empowerment that is facilitated by accompaniment and capacity-building based on their hopes and needs.
The autonomy of the community is at the heart of our programming, which is built around two major complementary areas:
- Increasing capacities to improve resilience, facilitate the adaption of practices to climate change and ensure greater economic, food, land and climate security; and
- Strengthening citizen participation and power in all formal and informal decision-making spaces involving governance of natural resources, the environment and public life.
Over the years, our projects have covered almost the entire country. Our program currently focuses on the island’s central region, from west (Maintirano) to east (Toamasina) and covering the regions of Melaky, Bongolava, Analamanga, Atsinanana and Alaotra-Mangoro. This region includes communities that are extremely vulnerable and isolated and that tend to be forgotten in aid responses. The following are some of the recent initiatives that our program has supported.
An ecological village to cope with climate change
Madagascar is one of the most vulnerable countries to climate change. Our current local partner operates in a part of the country that, being hit by heavy rains, is often flooded and insalubrious.
Amid these multiple vulnerabilities, our partner raises awareness and mobilizes people to manage and transform their neighbourhoods.
As part of this project, the residents of one of the capital region’s most vulnerable neighbourhoods were trained and equipped to turn their community into an ecological village developed by and for the residents. They thus rehabilitated a contaminated area into a community garden, and each of the village’s 50 or so households now has a vegetable garden, a stove and solar panels, reflecting a true ecological conversion. At the same time, 51 climate change adaptation microprojects were implemented in neighbourhoods nearby.
This project was realized thanks to the financial participation of the Government of Quebec and meets its 2030 Plan for a Green Economy objectives.
In addition to this support from the ministère de l’Environnement et de la Lutte contre les changements climatiques, our Madagascar program benefits from the financial participation of Quebec’s ministère des Relations internationales et de la Francophonie.
The situation
The world’s fourth largest island, Madagascar boasts many natural resources and a unique ecosystem. However, the country has faced challenges in its socio-economic development and, in recent decades, has experienced a rise in poverty. With a gross domestic product per capita of US$422, the country is ranked 164th out of 189, according to the Human Development Index. In addition, political instability undermines the country’s economic growth and development efforts and reduces people’s ability to deal with frequent shocks, such as climate-related disasters.