(English) Environment and Development Must Complement, Not Harm, One Another

Miala tsiny fa tsy mbola misy amin’ny teny malagasy ity lahatsoratra ity.

Money for Madagascar welcomes and joins new calls for reassurances that the Malagasy rainforests will not be damaged by two proposed new roads in Madagascar.

Members of the European parliament have called on the IMF to pause the payment of fund for two road-building projects in Madagascar, until forest-protection guarantees are made by the Malagasy government.

The 35 MEPs expressed fears in a letter to the international ‘economic growth and stability’ body that the roads, one of which will link the country’s capital Antananarivo with Toamasina on the east coast, and the ‘Route du Soleil’, between Maroansetra in Madagascar’s north-east, and Manajary, around 850km south, will potentially damage the vital Malagasy rainforests.

The Malagasy rainforests are regions of extraordinary natural diversity: 82 per cent of plants and 90 per cent of animals found there exist nowhere else on Earth, and the forests contain five per cent of all the planet’s species of flora and fauna.

The plants and their extracts are used globally for medicine and cosmetics, while the forests themselves have a vital role to play in humanity’s efforts to protect the environment and halt or at least significantly reduce climate catastrophe and its impacts.

The IMF announced in June 2024 that it would give the Malagasy government US$321m (£258.68m) from its ‘Resilience and Sustainability Facility’.

But the most recent published plans for the roads would see Anjozorobe Angavo New Protected Area and Ankeniheny-Zahamena Corridor Natural Resource Reserve damaged. This would mean the the loss of 1,490 hectares (3,682 acres) of forest, home to critically endangered lemurs like the indri, and crowned sifaka.

The planned Route du Soleil could fragment Makira Natural Park.

Madagascar’s Environment and Sustainable Development Minister Max Andonirina Fontaine, promised after the COP 29 Climate Conference (11-22 November 2024) that the highways would not pass through protected areas. But since the announcement, work has begun, and no new plans have been published, or discussions held.

Equally, local communities have complained the highway construction work by Egyptian company Samcrete, is already destroying rice fields, water sources and cultural sites.

The 35 MEPs said: ‘This $321 million package, while intended to enhance climate resilience, risks enabling infrastructure projects – specifically two roadways – that threaten Madagascar’s last primary forests. The IMF should only transfer the funds once there is a formal commitment that protected areas will not be affected by the road projects.’

An unnamed IMF spokesperson claimed that: ‘The RSF doesn’t finance specific projects, but rather provides general budget support to member countries for climate policy reforms. Our mandate and expertise do not extend to assessing the design of a specific road project or its environmental impact.’

The Malagasy road projects aim to improve the country’s communications, and accelerate its development, both of which are admirable and sensible goals.

But at MfM, we work with Malagasy people to improve their lives and livelihoods, including through infrastructure improvement projects, while helping them safeguard and protect their extraordinary environment.

We know that while development is vital – 79.7 per cent of Malagasy people live on less than the £1.73 per day global poverty baseline, and they face extraordinary challenges including some caused by climate change – so is the environment every person and every living thing on Earth relies upon and shares.

And we know that improved livelihoods and standards of living and environmental protection do not need to compete with one another, and can instead move forward hand in hand, each feeding and strengthening the other.

If it is true that the IMF’s ‘RSF’ does not enable it to assess the environmental impact of projects it helps fund, we join the 35 MEPs’ call for it to introduce safeguards prohibiting funds to be used for projects that could threaten protected forests and biodiversity.

We also agree with many Malagasy and international NGOs that all donors to Madagascar must make the protection of protected areas a central condition in their dialogue with the Malagasy government for bilateral and multilateral financing.

The environment and human welfare are not, and must not be considered to be, inevitably contradictory. We can and must work with Malagasy men, women and children to help them improve their lives and livelihoods, while protecting and strengthening the island’s unique ecology, upon which we all rely.