Linking Actors for Regional Opportunities (LARO)

October 2003 - October 2005

The vast majority of Madagascar's population depends on subsistence agriculture for its livelihood, which is the most severe cause of environmental degradation. Deforestation, bush fires, and extensive cropping of marginal lands are removing the ground cover necessary to keep in place highly erosion-prone soils. This degradation threatens not only biological diversity, but also watershed and soil stability vital to an agrarian economy. Rural communities need more options to utilize and manage available natural resources in a sustainable manner.

The LARO program focuses on the Anosy region, where efforts to create an integrated regional planning framework have been slowed by a lack of capacity among regional actors. The region has expressed a need to integrate environmental considerations across all sectors and to create a framework that brings together development priorities set at the local level to achieve greater coherency and synergy among the different sectors.

Pact's approach

The LARO project works to address environmental degradation and agrarian poverty in Madagascar through a public-private alliance between USAID and Rio Tinto/QIT Madagascar Minerals (QMM), a multinational mining conglomerate.

The program focuses on three critical and interrelated results:

• Civil society and regional actors develop a regional development framework based on social, economic and environmental considerations.
• Stakeholders select environmentally friendly and economically sound activities in line with the new regional development framework and provide assistance to the city of Fort-Dauphin in crafting its urban plan.
• Conservation and development activities contribute to the protection of Malagasy biodiversity.

Pact focuses on bringing into equilibrium relationships distorted by poverty and achieving more sustainable development for the Anosy region in Madagascar. Working through local groups and individuals, Pact fosters widespread and effective public participation at all levels of government decision-making through the following activities:

• Establishing an institutional regional planning framework through which technical capacity will be delivered to assist in developing the stakeholder-owned and respected Anosy Regional Development Framework.
• Selecting municipal development plans that reflect local development priorities, which are consistent with the integrated Regional Development Framework.
• Providing technical and organizational support to community-based reforestation initiatives.
• Initiating and supporting priority biodiversity conservation zones and community-based income-generating interventions.
• Promoting community-based sustainable management of aquatic natural resources.

Interim Results

• The 130-member General Assembly of the Regional Development Committee for the Anosy region has developed and approved the Regional Development Framework, facilitating the rapid and appropriate implementation of various projects. The national government already views the framework as a model and reference tool for other regions.
• Regional Investment Strategy (RIS) and Regional Investment Plan (RIP) are completed. The RIP translates the strategic objectives and activities of the RIS into activities and costs.
• The Fort Dauphin Urban Development Plan is fully completed, and the final document is currently under evaluation by the government. An eventual update will be performed following approval of the Environmental Impact Assessment of the Integrated Growth Pole Project funded by World Bank.
• Communal Development Plan Guidelines were finalized and approved and will serve to guide the updating of all communal development plans to better reflect the priorities outlined in the Regional Development Framework and the Regional Development Plan.
• The tree nursery and reforestation campaign is completed, with 100 hectares planted. 120,000 seedlings were planted throughout five communes
• The program supported a roundtable of donors and investors in Fort Dauphin to discuss the Regional Investment Plan, the Regional Investment Strategy, and the overall development framework for the next five years.
• The diagnostic study on the Ambatotsirongorongo site was completed by WCS (Wildlife Conservation Society), with support from LARO. The study discovered four new communes affected by the conservation site, as opposed to the one commune identified by QMM in their preliminary assessment. WCS, under a mandate from LARO, is now working on public consultation and preparing the administrative and legal process for establishing the conservation site. LARO, in partnership with WCS, is nearing completion of the management plan for the site. The LARO team is also continuing its awareness campaign and income-generating activities.
• The aquaculture training center for the local fishermen in Ambinanikely was officially inaugurated. The aquaculture site in Ambinanibe will serve as a field application site for students at the training center. Mobilization and education of fishermen and villagers surrounding the Ambinanibe lagoon continues.