About
SEED Madagascar (Sustainable Environment, Education & Development in Madagascar) is an award-winning British registered charity (number 1079121). Operating in southeast Madagascar, we manage a wide range of sustainable development and conservation projects across the Anosy region. Alongside this, we aim to raise global awareness of Madagascar’s unique needs and build constructive partnerships to aid development.
Our Vision
A thriving, healthy, and sustainable Madagascar.
Our Mission
Working together to build community and environmental resilience in southeast Madagascar.
Our Goals
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To support a range of organisations to respond flexibly and efficiently to the most critical needs of communities in the Anosy region.
- To enable a range of organisations to contribute to achievement of the government's objectives and targets in the fields of Community Health, Education Infrastructure, Rural Livelihoods, Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH), and Environmental Conservation.
Our Organisational Strategy 2023 - 2033
SEED Madagascar Organisational Strategy
Madagascar is an unrepeatable experiment; a set of unique animals and plants evolving in isolation for over 60 million years. We are still trying to unravel its mysteries; how tragic it would be if we lost it before we even understood it
David Attenborough
Unique and endangered
Madagascar is among the world's most significant biodiversity hotspots. The level of endemism among its flora and fauna is estimated at over 80%.
Best known for its unique inhabitant, the lemur, Madagascar is home to 100 species and subspecies of lemur, from the swaggering ringtail to the enigmatic aye-aye, and tiny dwarf and mouse lemurs that can sit in the palm of your hand. Lemurs today face many different threats; through the loss of habitat, hunting for bushmeat and capture for the pet trade.
Did you know about two-thirds of the world's chameleon species are found here in Madagascar? It is also home to many exotic, endemic and endangered birds and around 12,000 flowering plant species, some 10,000 are thought to be found nowhere else on earth.
All this is threatened.
The communities
Second to none in their reputation for friendliness and generosity, the people of Madagascar make up an ethnically diverse population of around 21 million. It is one of the world's most impoverished and least developed countries, ranking 155/187 in the 2014 UN Human Development Index. 50% of children under three years of age suffer retarded growth due to a chronically inadequate diet. Island-wide, about 1 in every 10 children die before the age of five from easily preventable diseases, such as diarrhoea – rising to as many as 4 in 10 in rural areas.
The role of women in Madagascar is that of child bearer and household manager, with girls typically marrying and having children from as young as 12. Women's livelihood options and engagement in civil society are notably restricted by cultural expectations. Knowledge of and access to family planning options are also extremely limited. Many deaths among women aged 15-24 are related to pregnancy or childbirth.
Already limited Government educational services rarely reach rural communities and state-provided health facilities are seriously under-funded.
92 % of Madagascar’s 22 million inhabitants live below the poverty line of $2 per day
World Food Programme
Political crisis
Already weak from long-term political instability, the island has seen both poverty and environmental damage significantly increase since 2009 as the result of a political coup. During the troubled transitional government years, trade in many of the island's endangered species accelerated sharply, the price of basic food staples, like rice, doubled, the value of key saleable assets halved and more than 228,000 jobs were lost. A new, democratically-elected government came to power in January 2014, and many Malagasy are hopeful of what the future holds.
Local, sustainable solutions
Though the Malagasy people are interested in their environment and willing to conserve it, it is also clear that conservation policies have been imposed on them from above with little or no community consultation, impacting negatively on people already greatly impoverished.
This is where organisations like SEED Madagascar can help: working alongside local Malagasy communities on their own sustainable solutions to the challenges of health, conservation, education and livelihoods.
The Misconduct Disclosure Scheme
SEED Madagascar is a member of the Misconduct Disclosure Scheme. The Scheme was launched in January 2019 to address the specific problem of known sexual abusers moving within and between different humanitarian and development agencies.
We commit to:
- Systematically check with previous employers about any SEA issues relating to potential new hires
- Respond systematically to such checks from others.