Upper Mandrare Basin Development Project - Phase II

Upper Mandraré Basin Development Project - Phase II

The aim of the second phase of the Upper Mandraré Basin Development Project is to increase the on-farm and off-farm income of rural inhabitants of the target zone in order to improve their living conditions and help to increase food security. This project consolidates the activities of the first phase, such as the rehabilitation of irrigated rice-growing areas, the restoration of livestock production, investment in productive infrastructure and the strengthening of farmers' organizations. The project is also making a special effort to help the most marginalized groups such as landless farmers, women and young people to benefit directly from the project's investments and to enable communities, farmers' organizations and locally elected officials to play a greater role in planning, decision-making and development activities.

More specifically, the project has made it possible:

• To train communities and in particular local farmers' organizations, such as water users' groups, herders' groups, road users' groups, entrepreneurs' associations and environmental protection associations (almost 500 in all, forming various federations) in planning, management, organization and negotiation; the project has carried out literacy training of more than 10,000 people and also provided training in the formulation of local development plans;
• To support local and communal initiatives, including the development of lowlands and valley bottoms with an intensification of rice production (5,100 ha producing 27,000 tonnes in normal years), better health coverage for livestock (80,000 cattle vaccinated), development of new sectors such as garlic, capsicum and various vegetables, improvement in the management of forest resources and bush fires, and improvement in communities' access to education, health services and drinking water;
• To open up the project zone by eliminating bottlenecks in the road infrastructure so as to improve market access and reduce transaction costs; to this end, the project has financed the rehabilitation and construction of about 140 km of provincial roads and 79 km of inter-communal roads in 11 communes, connecting all the main towns of the communes with the main town of the region and thus facilitating the marketing of produce, the supply of the region with inputs and trade in general;
• To improve the access of rural inhabitants to financial services by building nine new savings and credit banks (FItehirizana VOla Ifampisamborana – FIVOY), setting up an information and management system, training elected officials and making rural organizations aware of the various financial products available; the penetration level of this network has reached 5 per cent in three years and it has recently been expanded to the regional level with the opening of banks in Fort Dauphin (the IFRA network).

Consult the impact studies

Source: IFAD