Madagascar

The Republic of Madagascar or simply Madagascar is an exotic island nation along the majestic Indian Ocean of Africa’s southeastern coast. It was previously known as Malagasy Republic. Its main island which is also named Madagascar is considered as the world’s 4th largest island.

Madagascar is more known because of its diverse animal and plant species. In fact, the world’s 5% of animal and plant species is found in Madagascar. Endemic in this nation is over 80% already. The lemur which belongs to the infraorder of primates, about 6 species of the endemic baobab, 3 bird families that are also endemic and the famous carnivorous fossa is found in Madagascar.    

Since Madagascar is isolated from other continents for a very long time, it has a diversified mixture of animals and plants that cannot be seen anywhere else in the globe. In fact, because of its long isolation, may ecologists even categorize it as the so-called 8th continent. You will realize among the 10,000 species of plants found in Madagascar, only 10% is common worldwide. The rest is extraordinarily unnamed and unaccounted for.

The exploration of these varied flora and fauna resulted to it’s almost extinction. Human activity has endangered a get number of their species. This is based from a report that stated the disappearance of about 3/4 of the native vegetation in Madagascar. The only remaining species that is still intact would be about 18%.

Furthermore, the windward or the eastern portion of Madagascar is full of tropical rainforests. The southern and western portions have thorn forests, dry tropical forests, as well as xeric shrub lands and deserts. This is because they lie along the central highland’s rain shadow. These deciduously dry forests were generally preserved better than those in the high central plateaus and the exotic eastern rainforests. The reason is only a presumption about having limited water and a population density that is quite low.

Defprestation Problems 

Aside from this, parts of Madagascar are experiencing extensive deforestation. This is very alarming, with the Tavy or the Slash-and-Burn activity occurring in the western and eastern portions of the dry western forests; along with the central plateau. This deforestation has reduced the forest habitat of several flora and fauna; along with the pressure it has implicated on a few endangered species thriving on these parts of Madagascar. This method of Slash-and-Burn is used oftentimes by direct shifting cultivators so as to create actual short-term yields from the marginal soils. If this method is being practiced and done repeatedly without ever intervening times or fallow periods, this would result to eroded or exhausted nutrient-poor unproductive soils. It is even more alarming to know that this also causes an increase in the surface runoff on those coming from lands that have been burned. This would later on result to an even alarming state of significant erosion as well as high sedimentation up to the western rivers.

Madagascars Economony  

Madagascar’s economy is based on agriculture, which would include forestry and fishing. Madagascar has a variety of natural commodities that they export. Their major exports would be vanilla, coffee and sugarcane; along with cocoa, cloves and rice. You can also include beans, cassava (tapioca) and peanuts. Additional exports would be bananas and other livestock products.

Basing from the rich history of Madagascar, the export commodity which has particular importance would be vanilla. This is when Coca-cola switched to becoming New Coke last 1985. With the New Coke, less vanilla is needed. This made a downturn on Madagascar’s economy. It only returned to its previous levels when New Coke shifted back to Coke Classic. This is why vanilla is currently their major export. Coffee is also increasing in demand right now because of the bolstering popularity of Starbucks Coffee. Starbucks gets its coffee from African countries.

Thus, during the 1980s, structural reforms were made. This is from the pressure that would come from international financial institutions. A good example would be the World Bank, where-in the primary privatization program from 1988 up to 1993 along with the EPZ or Export Processing Zone development in the 1990s became key milestones for this effort. The dilemma only occurred during the period of 1991 up to 1996 when Madagascar experienced a state of stagnation. After these years, 5 years of actual solid economic growth as well as an acceleration in foreign investment made a positive turn for Madagascar, which was supposedly driven by the EPZ development and the 2nd wave of privatizations.
However, amidst these structural reforms, the government of Madagascar remained weak. Aside from this, rampant and high levels of corruption became apparent in Madagascar. Even though the island experienced solid growth for about 5 years (1997-2001), the poverty rate in their nation is still very high. This is most especially true on their rural areas.

This resulted to a political crisis that lasted for 6 long months, which triggered a presidential election last December 2001. This so-called dispute halted the country’s economic activity during the first quarter of 2002.  Madagascar’s Real GDP was dropped down to a 12.7% only for the year 2002. Aside from this, the inflows of actual foreign investment dropped tarnishing the budding reputation of Madagascar as a standout AGOA. Subsequent to this crisis, Madagascar’s economy rebounded with an actual GDP growth of about 10% by 2003.

In 2004, the rising inflation and currency depreciation hampered the economic performance of Madagascar. Thus, the actual growth of the country reached about 5.3%. This is amidst the inflation rate being 25% by the end of 2004.

2005 was no less different because of inflation which was brought under the control of tight monetary policies of actually raising the so-called Taux Directeur or the rate of the Central Bank to about 16%. Thus, this led to the tightening of the reserve requirements of banks. This is why growth was really expected to be about 6.5% that year.  

Govrenment Implemented Projects and Plans 

With the political crisis they experienced last 2002, the government of Madagascar set up a new course in building their country’s confidence. They coordinated with several international financial institutions and donors. This would be the so-called recovery plan of Madagascar’s government, which they planned in collaboration with their private sectors and donors. This was later on presented at a conference called “Friends of Madagascar” last July 2002 in Paris. This conference was organized by none other than the World Bank. This paved a positive result for Madagascar. This is with the generous support of donor countries that showed their confidence on the new Madagascar government. Their generous support was through pledging about $1 billion of assistance to Madagascar for over a 5 year period. The then Malagasy government emphasized that their principal priority would be for their road infrastructures as well as their underlying commitment on public-private partnerships. This would be through an established joint sector of public-private steering committees.

Thus, the agricultural exports of Madagascar which consisted of the their low volume but high value commodities like litchies, vanilla and other essential oils became more demanded. It paved the way for Madagascar’s slow but consistently growing economy to also focus on ilmenite mining. In fact, the investments for this continue to emerge in the recent years. This is particularly prevalent in Fort Dauphin and Tulear areas.  Hence, in Fort Dauphin, the mining projects seemed a pretty controversial. This is because of the filing of several reports by environmental organizations and the “Friends of the Earth” stating their concern about the actual effects on the communities and Madagascar’s local environment.

This was brushed off because these major mining projects that were foreseen to help Madagascar’s economy through these gases and oil sectors. The mining sector includes the development of the following:

•    Coal at Sakoa
•    Nickel at Tamatave

Thus, Madagascar Oil is already developing:

•    Onshore heavy oil field at Tsimiroro
•    Ultra heavy oil at Bemolanga

For years, Madagascar attempted to improve its economy; along with its relation to its neighboring country’s. It even joined the African Union and asked fro assistant from other nations. This assistance would be to finance their infrastructure projects. Amidst these efforts, Madagascar’s government remains corrupt in all aspects.

The British Embassy in Madagascar 

Hence, just last November 2004, Madagascar finally had its embassy re-opened. This is a good turn since it was absent for almost 30 years already. It just that last December 15, 2004, the then Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw surprisingly announced the British Embassy’s closure in Antananarivo. This is in order to save 250,000 euros per year. The embassy was closed last August 2005. This was despite the protests and petitions from the heads of state of Africa, the Malagasy Senate, a European commissioner, several British companies, 30+ NGOs that operate in Madagascar and the public members.  It was only brought out that the embassy was closed because of financial reasons. Thus, the Anglo-Malagasy Society is making its protests to have the British Embassy re-opened again.

Properties in Madagascar 

With regards to the properties market of Madagascar, it is currently working on infrastructure projects for their country. Although it has coastal boundaries, resorts are still being developed to promote the country in the Tourism sector. Nevertheless, the rich greens and the lush forests of Madagascar make it an exotic destination to visit.