The island nation of Madagascar is famous for its thousands of unique plants and animals—including over 50 species of lemurs—and boasts nearly 10 million hectares of intact, native forests and more than 5,000 kilometers of coastline that supports extensive stands of mangroves and coral reefs. One of the earth’s threatened biodiversity “hotspots,” Madagascar composes less than half a percent of the earth’s landmass, but harbors nearly 5% of the world’s biodiversity.
Although rich in natural assets, 77% of Malagasy households live in poverty. The past several years have been marked by an ongoing political stalemate, food-price hikes, and a series of natural disasters including cyclones, droughts and floods.
The country’s environmental assets have taken a hit, but the Government has made a firm commitment to manage them wisely while capturing their untapped economic potential.
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Madagascar is one of the 10 African countries that endorsed the Gaborone Declaration, a set of principals and goals that bring natural capital accounting in development planning. It has been an active and engaged partner in the WAVES Global Partnership since 2011.
Following a mission from the World Bank experts last month, Madagascar is starting to implement their workplan on natural capital accounting.
“The tools that WAVES will establish allow the economic value of natural resources to be integrated into analysis and monitoring of macro-economic performance of the country,” said Jean-Gabriel Randrianarison, Secretary-General of Madagascar’s Ministry of Economy and Industry and co-president of the WAVES Steering Committee. “In the medium and long term, Madagascar will have better management of its natural resources, leading in part to job creation and sustainability of natural resource-based activities to support economic development,” said Randrianarison.
After joining the WAVES partnership, the Government brought together technical experts to come up with policy priorities that could be supported by the program. Two technical case studies were commissioned to generate information on the forestry and fisheries sectors, with the aim of testing different methodological approaches and identifying clear entry points for future WAVES support.
In early 2012, high-level discussions were held with Government agencies and civil society leaders to develop a five-year work plan for WAVES Partnership activities and a National Steering Committee was established under the leadership of the Ministry of Economy and Industry and Conservation International, a leading environmental non-profit organization working in Madagascar.
In August 2012, the Steering Committee agreed upon a work plan which will develop accounts in the following sectors:
· Mining: The large-scale mining sector is on the brink of a major expansion in Madagascar and account results will contribute to policy dialogue on how the revenues can be better captured, distributed and invested to improve sustainable development and to distribute benefits equitably.
· Water resources sector: Water availability ranges widely in different parts of the country, from an average annual rainfall of only 500mm per year in the semi-arid southern portion to several meters per year in the northeast. A water account will help policy makers determine equitable pricing schemes for different users (e.g. industry, agriculture, mining, residential) and choose the best route for efficiently managing and distributing water resources. Because many watersheds are in protected areas, the data will also help determine the economic value that those areas contribute to the national economy.
· Protected-areas: Determining the true value that the extensive protected areas contribute to the economy in terms of tourism and the protection of watersheds and how those values can be captured and used to finance the efficient management of the network that receives 90% of its funding from foreign assistance.
· Fisheries sector: Understanding the economic value of fisheries can help the Government and development partners, such as UN agencies and other donors, shape policy and initiatives to best manage and protect the fisheries sector.
WAVES also plans to work at the regional level and develop practical ecosystem accounting tools that can contribute to the integration of natural capital values in Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) planning in the southwest of the country.
The Government is financing a willingness-to-pay survey in protected areas in parallel with the natural capital accounting work, and together this information will contribute to one of the most pressing questions in the environment sector in Madagascar: how to sustainably finance the invaluable and treasured network of protected areas that cover 12% of the country’s land area.
There will be regular meetings of the Steering Committee and a number of technical working groups to oversee activities and ensure the outcomes are communicated widely to decision-makers and the population at large.
“The key outcomes of this work—the mechanisms and tools for natural capital accounting—will show how effective policy making and investments aimed at natural resource management can support economic development and poverty reduction,” said Randrianarison.