Project to Support Development in the Menabe and Melaky Regions

The Project to Support Development in the Menabe and Melaky Regions aims to make poor rural people’s access to land and water secure through the productive development of arable land and the sustainable management of valley bottoms and microcatchment areas.

These two resources are essential with a view to sustainably improving small farmers’ production, making their income secure and integrating people who have recently immigrated into the zone. Parallel with this, the project is financing the construction of irrigation networks and rural tracks to connect villages with markets. Lastly, the introduction of new agricultural techniques will allow an increase in agricultural production and the halting of environmental degradation.

Madagascar’s Menabe and Melaky regions can be divided into lowlands situated on the coast in deltas, valleys or basins, where the soil is of good quality and water resources are significant (albeit seasonal), and uplands, where the bare hills are subject to erosion and which are generally suitable for extensive livestock production. In the selected zones, practices of slash-and-burn cultivation, clearing, bush fires and indiscriminate logging are all still in use, and land tenure conflicts between farmers and herders still need to be resolved.

In addressing the issue of land tenure, the project is a response to a demand expressed by the inhabitants for security of tenure through the issuing of a title deed or a recognized tenure certificate, or even a legally recognized lease covering at least 10 years, making investment in a programme of crop intensification or soil rehabilitation possible. By the project’s end, half the population in the two regions will have improved their land tenure security. The project also aims to prevent new conflicts or unauthorized land appropriation.

In addition, the project ensures that the needs of poor farmers in the target regions have priority attention. It places special emphasis on women, who are often denied such basic rights as that of land ownership. Lastly, it will pay major attention to sustainable natural resource management in order to curb soil erosion and thus enhance the value of land allocated to poor farmers as part of land tenure security efforts.