SEED Madagascar

Access to education is an important factor that can contribute to the development of a country and unlock employment opportunities in various ways, representing an important pathway out of poverty.¹ Yet, school attendance in the Global South can be hindered by multiple factors,² such as the need for children to help support their families with agricultural activities like farming and livestock herding.³ Climate-related issues can further exacerbate this challenge. They have a significant impact on agricultural productivity, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa where variations in temperature and precipitation can negatively influence student attendance at school.⁴ For subsistence farmers, unpredictability in weather patterns threatens their livelihoods, resulting in less capacity to invest in and improve human capital.⁵ This is also felt at the community level, where people have to find alternative income-generating activities. Education can understandably become deprioritized, and this is also often true when it comes to paying for schooling. This is the experience of many at Beraketa Primary School, where parents often do not have the means to pay for school fees, which fund the FRAMⁱ teachers’ salaries.

In August 2022, SEED responded to the damage caused by cyclones Emnati and Batsirai, and investigated how the drought can reduce school enrolment by intensifying financial strain on parents who already struggle with paying tuition fees. Cyclones and heavy rain can also disrupt road systems and prevent teachers from being able to commute to work, exacerbating already high levels of teacher absenteeism.

^{i) The majority of teachers in the south of Madagascar are voluntary with their salaries supported by parent-teacher associations: FRAM stands for “association of parents” in Malagasy.}

Impacts of Extreme Weather

A Challenge Worldwide

In 2022, extreme weather events occurred across the globe, ranging from intense rainfall to severe drought. In the northern hemisphere, Europe experienced the worst drought in 500 years and sections of the Yangtze – China’s longest river – reached their lowest levels since 1865.⁶ Further south, drought conditions in eastern Ethiopia, northern Kenya, and Somalia have left 22 million people at risk of starvation. In Somalia, the rainfall season was the lowest in the last six decades, while large parts of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda also experienced dangerously dry conditions.⁷ According to the IFRC, sub-Saharan Africa is currently experiencing one of its most alarming food crises in decades, immense in both severity as well as geographic scope. Drought is one of the main triggers of the dire situation which has left roughly 146 million people in need of urgent humanitarian assistance due to acute food insecurity.⁸

In developing countries, 82% of all damage and loss caused by drought is absorbed by the agricultural sector,⁹ and the lack of water severely affects small-scale farmers who depend on agriculture for their livelihood. The impact of climate on family structures is also becoming apparent, such as in the isolated district of Nyagatare (north-eastern Rwanda), where lack of rainfall has driven mothers to move to neighbouring districts in search of water, meaning their children are left at home alone for days.¹⁰

Impact on Madagascar

Countries in the Global South are particularly vulnerable to extreme weather, and Madagascar is no exception. As one of the poorest countries in the world, with 81% of people living below the poverty line,¹¹ local communities struggle to cope with any prolonged period of drought. This is particularly true in the southern regions, where poverty rates are even higher and subsistence agriculture and pastoralism are completely rain-fed.¹²

At present, Madagascar is still experiencing its worst drought in four decades. Three consecutive years of severe drought have wiped out harvests and hindered food access in Madagascar’s Grand Sud region in particular. Because of extreme poverty as well as dependence on small-scale subsistence farming, households in the Grand Sud have limited capacity to cope with crises, including repeated and sustained drought.¹³ For example, the Manambovo river which lies in the south remains dry, and the population has had to adapt by digging through the soil to find water. However, drinking from unsafe water sources can cause dangerous illnesses, including diarrheal diseases.¹⁴ It is estimated that 6,900 Malagasy children die annually from water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) related diseases, though in some instances this figure can be almost double.¹⁵

In southern Madagascar, coping with drought has become a way of life.

Abela Ralaivita, UNICEF Madagascar

Many areas are not only experiencing frequent and extreme periods of drought, but are also being  impacted by severe cyclones.  A new study by Chand et al. (2022) has suggested that while cyclones in the Pacific and Indian Ocean have decreased in frequency,¹⁶ they have increased in their intensity and therefore the risk of devastating damage is higher than ever.¹⁷ In 2022, a total of five tropical storms hit Madagascar, affecting an estimated 960,000 people with 206 reported deaths. Heavy flooding in the Southeast caused severe harm to infrastructure, with 23,000 homes damaged by Cyclone Emnati alone.¹⁸ The economic shock of the past cyclone season has been devastating, with losses in production of rice and cassava estimated to be in the region of 57,000,000 USD.¹⁹ Roughly 80% of Malagasy people depend primarily on agriculture for their livelihoods, and due to the combination of cyclones and drought it is anticipated that 90% of crops will fail or have a below-average harvest.²⁰

All of the crops were destroyed, and now we are going through a drought without anything to harvest nor grow in this dry season except for potatoes. For example, we cannot grow cassava which is a crucial element of our diet. The impact this year was so bad.

– Lomba Hasoavana, SEED’s Head of Construction

Beraketa Primary School

Beraketa is a small community in the Anosy region of southeast Madagascar and offers a clear example of how unpredictable and extreme weather patterns can hinder access to education and affect many aspects of community life. The community’s primary school infrastructure was destroyed in February 2022 by Cyclones Batsirai and Emnati, leaving the students without access to a safe learning environment. In response, UNICEF has provided the school with a tent to be used as a temporary classroom, yet this will not be enough to withstand adverse weather increasingly affecting the region and is insufficient to accommodate the school’s student population. As an additional short-term solution, part of the students are having class in small shed, but this lacks furniture and sufficient space to accommodate the number of students.

“Normally, cyclones are a good thing in the South because they represent an opportunity for rain without bad wind, but this year we had both.ⁱⁱ”

– Lomba Hasoavana, SEED’s Head of Construction

^{ii) The south of Madagascar normally does not get hit directly by cyclones, but gets only the adverse weather effects that come with it, such as heavy rain without powerful winds.}

​​​In October 2022, SEED’s Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) and Schools team conducted on-site interviews regarding the perception of current challenges to education in Beraketa, including the impact of extreme weather events. The interviewees included teachers and community members, who unanimously agreed that the weather events of the past year had caused repercussions across the whole community. The members that were interviewed identified drought and water provision as the most pressing issues in Beraketa. Food shortage due to the lack of rain left many parents with no other choice but to remove their children from school to contribute to the search for food. This often involves moving to other villages, therefore leaving their home communities and walking long distances through unsafe or isolated areas.

The combination of rising food prices and failing crops puts an additional burden on the parents of students at Beraketa Primary school, many of whom are unable to pay the school’s parent-teacher association fees. This impacts the lives of teachers, who frequently have to take time off school in order to search for food for themselves and to find additional ways to support their livelihoods. During interviews, it was revealed to SEED that Beraketa’s teachers were unable to afford a bar of soap to wash their uniform, due to FRAM’s limited capacity to support teacher salaries. Ultimately, these factors lead to the reduction in access to educational opportunities for students of Beraketa Primary School, as teachers become absent from the classroom.

The lack of access to clean drinking water in the wider Beraketa community contributes negatively to school attendance. Normally, the community and the school rely on a single well for water provision, but it is not sufficient to reliably provide water for the size of the population which relies on it. Additionally, the pump is currently broken and needs a replacement part which costs approximately £9.80. Despite having the technical capacity to fix it, they currently lack the financial resources. Thus, community members must walk to a local river to collect water, but many fear even the river is going to eventually dry out due to lack of rain. The absence of a reliable water source both in the school as well as at home is an additional factor that contributes to student absenteeism, as drinking from an unimproved water source will increase the spread of illnesses and ultimately reduce attendance in school.

SEED’s response

Beraketa exemplifies the resilience shown by many communities in Anosy, yet faces critical challenges which impact their education, health, and livelihoods. SEED is tailoring its response to the current most pressing issues identified by the Beraketa community.

SEED’s Programme Sekoly will provide a new school building with an updated anti-cyclone resistant design, to ensure that the structure will be able to withstand the cyclone seasons to come. Moreover, SEED will provide the school site with a new groundwater well, to ensure that the students and teachers of Beraketa Primary School have access to safe and clean drinking water. This will contribute to the creation of a safe and healthy learning environment for Beraketa Primary School’s 99 students and 7 teachers.

This project wouldn’t be possible without the SEED Sekoly Fund. If you would like to get involved, find the link to donate here.

---

References:

[1] H. Randell and C. Gray, (2016). Climate variability and educational attainment: Evidence from rural Ethiopia. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2016.09.006

[2] A. L. Hillman, E. Jenkner (2004). Educating Children in Poor Countries. https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/issues/issues33/

[3] International Labor Organization. Global Estimates of Child Labour: Results and trends, 2012-2016. https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---dcomm/documents/publication/wcms_575499.pdf

[4] H. Randell and C. Gray, (2016). Climate variability and educational attainment: Evidence from rural Ethiopia. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2016.09.006

[5] C. B. Barrett, (2022). Poverty traps and resource degradation. http://crsps.net/wp-content/downloads/BASIS/Inventoried%202.24/13-2002-2-78.pdf

[6] Attribution, (2022). Climate change made 2022’s northern-hemisphere droughts ‘at least 20 times’ more likely. https://www.carbonbrief.org/climate-change-made-2022s-northern-hemisphere-droughts-at-least-20-times-more-likely/#:~:text=The%20summer%20of%202022%20saw,compound%20already%20high%20food%20prices

[7] BBC News, (2022). China, Europe, US drought: Is 2022 the driest year recorded? https://www.bbc.com/news/62751110

[8] IFRC, (2022). Emergency Appeal: Africa Hunger crisis. https://adore.ifrc.org/Download.aspx?FileId=582688

[9] Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, (2021). The impact of disasters and crises 2021 on agriculture and food security. https://www.fao.org/3/cb3673en/cb3673en.pdf

[10] InfoNile, Geodata journalism. Mapping stories on water issues in the Nile Basin, (2022). Smart irrigation saves water, improves farming practices in Rwanda’s remote drought-stricken region. https://infonile.org/en/2022/04/smart-irrigation-saves-water-improves-farming-practices-in-rwandas-remote-drought-stricken-region/

[11] The World Bank, (2022). Madagascar overview. https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/madagascar/overview

[12] World Weather Attribution, (2021). Factors other than climate change are the main drivers of recent food insecurity in Southern Madagascar. https://www.worldweatherattribution.org/factors-other-than-climate-change-are-the-main-drivers-of-recent-food-insecurity-in-southern-madagascar/

[13] Amnesty International, (2021). The human rights impact of climate change in drought-stricken southern madagascar. https://www.amnesty.org/en/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/AFR3548092021ENGLISH.pdf

[14] UNICEF, (2022). Coping with Climate Change in Southern Madagascar. https://www.unicef.org/madagascar/en/stories/coping-climate-change-southern-madagascar

[15] UNICEF & Government of Madagascar: Ministry of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene, (2016). Investing in water, sanitation and hygiene in Madagascar: The business case. Available at: https://www.unicef.org/esa/sites/unicef.org.esa/files/2019-04/Investment-Case-for-WASH-in-Madagascar-Summary-%282016%29.pdf ; Our World in Data, (2019). More than half a million children die from diarrhea each year. How do we prevent this? Available at: https://ourworldindata.org/childhood-diarrheal-diseases 

[16] Chand, S.S., Walsh, K.J.E., Camargo, S.J. et al., (2022). Declining tropical cyclone frequency under global warming. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-022-01388-4

[17] R. Mendelsohn K. A. Emanuel S. Chonabayashi, L. Bakkensen, (2011). The Impact of Climate Change on Global Tropical Storm Damages. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228243614_The_Impact_of_Climate_Change_on_Global_Tropical_Storm_Damageshttps://www.researchgate.net/publication/228243614_The_Impact_of_Climate_Change_on_Global_Tropical_Storm_Damages

[18] UNOCHA, (2022). Cyclones Batsirai and Emnati in Madagascar: How the Private Sector Is
Responding. https://reliefweb.int/report/madagascar/cyclones-batsirai-and-emnati-madagascar-how-private-sector-responding

[19] FAO, (2022). Tropical Cyclone Outlook 2022/23. https://reliefweb.int/attachments/37607f66-9f0a-4e4f-b410-e58156914b1a/Tropical%20Cyclone%20Outlook%202022-23.pdf

[20] ACAPS, (2022). Madagascar overview: tropical cyclones season in 2022. https://www.acaps.org/country/madagascar/crisis/country-level