About
SEED 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 Strategic Aim
To build community and environmental resilience through community-driven social development and conservation initiatives, ensuring improved outcomes are sustained and communities can withstand future shocks. This work will be concentrated in our core programme areas of Community Health, Education Infrastructure, Rural Livelihoods, Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH), and Environmental Conservation.
Our Organisational Strategy 2023 - 2033
Be like a chameleon, one eye on the future, one eye on the past.
Malagasy proverb
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 31 million (World Population Review, 2024). It is one of the world's most impoverished and least developed countries, ranking 177/193 in the 2022 UN Human Development Index (UNDP, 2022). It is estimated that approximately 458,700 of children under five years of age are likely to suffer from acute malnourishment, contributing to a variety of further health issues (IPC, 2024). With an under-five mortality rate of 66 deaths in every 1,000 live births, many of these deaths are the result of preventable diseases like pneumonia, diarrhoea and malaria (UNICEF, 2022). Access to health workers and facilities further exacerbate these issues, with over half of the country’s population living more than 5km from a health centre (USAID, 2017).
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. Already limited Government educational services rarely reach rural communities and state-provided health facilities are seriously under-funded.
24 million people are living on less than 4,000 ariary ($0.89) per person per day.
Political crisis
Madagascar’s history of political instability has hindered good governance and socio-economic development (IEG World Bank Group, 2021). The current government’s Plan Emergence Madagascar (2019-2023, PEM) emphasises governance as a cross-cutting priority yet in 2023 it was ranked 145/180 countries on the Corruption Perception Index (Transparency International, 2023), and in 2024 fell to 100/180 in press freedom indices (Reporters Without Borders, 2024). Recent governance improvement efforts and gains in the fight against poverty have been hampered by the slowdown in economic activity due to Covid-19 (BTI Transformation Index, 2024).
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.