Madagascar 2030: a new conference for university leadership in development

“Ho avy” is the Malagasy word for “future”, yet when a social scientist recently asked a farmer in southwestern Madagascar’s spiny forest region what she thinks about the future, her reply was “we don’t”.

We are on a mission to change this at a systemic level, and as YPARD recognizes, that means focusing on youth. This past September, our small NGO, Big Red Earth, collaborated with Madagascar’s University of Toliara to host the first of what is planned to be an annual conference titled Madagascar 2030: The Role of Universities in Sustainable Development.

The conference concept is simple. First, students and development partners gather the best available data about the past, present, and future of the development concerns they are interested in (this year, agriculture and education were the focal areas, but any Sustainable Development Goal can be used). The conference then consists of a variety of activities for which the participants -students, faculty, and partners- explore the available data, engage in targeted discussions, and brainstorm strategic next steps to advance sustainable development in their region. This year, the conference was short with few representations -70 participants for 1 day- compared to the vision we have set for next year - which will include activities spanning a full week, with participation in the hundreds. This is a lofty goal, but our agriculture and education students know the future of development in their region is at stake.

The southwestern region of Madagascar was called a “project cemetery” by UNICEF in 2011, due to the number of failed development efforts leaving behind evidence of their inefficacy (e.g. the cliche of broken water pumps). The reasons for this inability of development specialists to make real progress have been long identified as due to the short-term duration of most projects, as well as a lack of social capital between development actors to build strategic capacity for the long-term. Our NGO was created to address this challenge - by not thinking like most other NGOs in the region.

The Big Red Earth  mission, rather than doing direct development work, is solely focused on capacity building with the University of Toliara ,one of six national public universities across Madagascar. We believe that strengthening the learning environment and capacity for partnerships among the agricultural and education sciences faculties within this regional university is the most strategic approach to address the long standing development challenges of the southwestern region. The Madagascar 2030 conference is a simple approach to build student competencies who  are now spearheading the 2016 conference organization as well as showcase applied work with rural and urban communities while also engaging, connecting, and attracting new collaborative partnerships.

As youths in agriculture strengthen their competencies in organizing data-driven participatory approaches to shape their preferred visions of the future, the region as a whole will be vastly better prepared to hear and respond to the visions and voices of farmers empowered to shape their own future.  

The Madagascar 2030 conference this year included three informational posters (available in english & french), as well as a full report on the event, the process model, and future plans for development.