(English) What We Do

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Madagascar is the world’s fourth-poorest country. Eighty per cent of Malagasy people rely on farming – in many cases subsistence farming or day labour – to access food. Very nearly as many – 79.9 per cent – survive on just £1.73 per day or less: the global poverty baseline.

More than one million Malagasy people are experiencing high levels of acute food insecurity. This term means they lack sufficient food to meet their basic needs, threatening their ability to work, and also their lives: the next ‘level’ of food shortage is famine. Many, many more experience hunger every day, missing at least one meal: 50 per cent of Malagasy children suffer stunting due to malnutrition. One in ten do not reach their tenth birthday.

Simultaneously, the Malagasy rainforest is under serious pressure. Madagascar contains five per cent of all the world’s species of animals and plants. More than four in every five of those are only found there.

But Madagascar has the world’s fourth-highest rate of deforestation. It has already lost 80 per cent of its natural areas and loses around 200,000ha. to deforestation each year. At the current rate of deforestation Madagascar’s forests will be completely gone within 40 years.

And more than 3,900 Malagasy plant and animal species are threatened. The ‘level’ above ‘threatened’ is endangered: 600 species of flora and fauna are endangered. The ‘level’ above that is extinct.

In response to these challenges, Money for Madagascar:

• funds reforestation and environmental education projects in environmentally-sensitive areas

• works with partners to promote sustainable agriculture, to help Malagasy people escape poverty and hunger, and protect and expand the Malagasy rainforest and its flora and fauna

• operates microfinance – community ‘savings and loans’ groups – models to help Malagasy people develop and operate new livelihoods and income-improving initiatives

• helps children and their communities realise their potential by building schools, investing in teacher-training and teaching resources, and combating hunger with school kitchen gardens and canteens

• pays for wells, latrines and WASH training to improve health and reduce preventable illness

• funds centres for homeless and abandoned children and works with them and their families

• sponsors vocational training and makes small grants to help destitute and homeless people escape poverty

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