Development Ratings

The Andrew Lees Trust considers education to be the single most important factor in the alleviation of poverty. The Trust implements projects which provide learning opportunities and information to meet the needs of the rural population in Southern Madagascar.

• Project Radio was set up in 1998 as an Early Warning System using radio programmes to share information with villagers about, for example, agricultural prices or cholera alerts. Programmes are produced with 47 local partners who provide the technical content. Over 3,300 wind-up radios have been given to listening groups that each reach 10-100 people. Information is then shared with neighbours and family members. 70-80% of the target rural audience is illiterate. The project uses local examples and language from daily life to explain complex messages. For instance, farming analogies are used to relate the effects of insect pests on crops in the field to the effects of the HIV virus on antibodies in the human body. A participative cycle approach with listener group members shapes topic selection and programme style. Programme subjects include aspects of agriculture, food growing and animal husbandry, the environment and natural resource management, health (including AIDS awareness and mother and child issues), education and literacy, and culture. Programmes work in parallel with local and regional initiatives and complement the government’s national campaigns. The Trust has consulted with the UNDP on a national audit of communication needs in Madagascar.

• The Drought Mitigation Programme (DMP) involves training on the planting of trees (to stabilise soil, reduce water loss and improve food security) and the use of natural composts. It promotes the use of the ancestral local crop of sorghum as a drought-resistant alternative to corn, using a seed loan model. Villagers are shown how to use sorghum as fodder, fuel and food. A tree nursery sells trees to villagers. Planting trees is also a step on the official certification process for villagers to secure formal tenure and rights to the land where they live, as tree planting is considered land improvement.

• Project Energy was a fuel efficiency programme. The project trained people in rural areas to build fuel efficient stoves from local natural materials such as soil and ashes. Work continues under the DMP.

• Under the Land Management Project, now completed, trees were planted to act as wind breaks to reduce the shifting of sand dunes, and to attract rain to dry areas. One huge sand dune covered productive fields, forests and 6 villages. Planting sisal, casuarina pines, vines and grasses stabilises dunes. Dunes threaten livelihoods and buildings, and can shift at a rate of a kilometre a year.

• The Libanona Ecology Centre is now a self-financing local university which offers a BAC++ programme for local students. It is used as a resource centre mainly for Malagasy conservationists and villagers. Within a 50km radius, there is a range of unique habitats for study, including mangroves, montane rainforest, coastal forest and the spiny desert.

The Project Radio Network is a network of 21 radio stations currently affiliated to the Trust. Each station is contracted to broadcast the Project Radio programmes across most of Southern Madagascar in exchange for radio equipment, training and maintenance (to develop local radio journalism quality). An additional 19 radio stations are becoming affiliated in 2008. The four regional programme production units are not yet self-financing, but the intention is that income will be generated locally through consultancy contracts and local sponsorship. A cost recovery system is being prepared through a cost analysis of the production units.