Poverty Reduction Strategic Plan – cutting poverty in half within ten years

The national workshop on the Poverty Reduction Strategic Plan will take place on March 25, and 26, in the former presidential palace of Iavoloha, south of the capital city. From now on, more and more preparation meetings will be held. In reality, the Poverty Reduction Strategic Plan constitutes for the new leadership a multi-year plan covering the next three years. Their goal is to cut the poverty rate in half over the next ten years, in close collaboration with the Great Island?s financial partners. Some five hundred civilian, and political leaders will participate in the upcoming Poverty Reduction Strategic Plan workshop. This format lends to the meeting a national quality that it would not have otherwise. And according to Mr. Guy Razafinony, the Technical Adjustment Committee?s Secretary General and workshop coordinator, it turns the forum into a true national convention. This implies, of course, that the infamous national convention, which a fringe of political party leaders have been demanding, may never come to be. Moreover, President Ravalomanana himself has announced, a few weeks earlier, that he was leaning more toward an economic national convention, as opposed to a political one.

In Madagascar, poverty affects 85% of the rural population. Naturally, any effort to reduce the impact of such a scourge needs to address this current state of affairs. Although the rural population is supposed to be made up of farmers, agriculture only increased by a meager 2% between 1997 and 2000. Rice accounts for nearly 70% of the agricultural production. Madagascar is among the largest rice-consuming nations of the world. Analysts note that rice production has only increased by a mere 1.2% per year since the 1980?s.

The issue of national debt is among the myriad of concerns weighing heavily on the minds of those who are involved in the Poverty Reduction Strategic Plan. Estimated at $4 billion, the Malagasy national debt is among the primary hurdles which need to be overcome before a successful national economic recovery can take place. A Malagasy entrepreneur stated, “We need to work things out in such a way that our children do not end up saddled with the burden of our debts.” The Poverty Reduction Strategic Plan is one of the means which can be used to achieve a significant reduction in the Malagasy national debt.

The mere mention of cutting the poverty rate by one half often generates a heated debate. Within the current framework, the notion of a “speedy recovery”, which is supposed to be an integral part of the Malagasy president?s agenda, always seem to come up. Some view the ten year deadline as being much too lengthy, essentially amounting to a “bridge too far”. A Malagasy minister contended that “the poverty situation is such that taking the poverty rate from 75% to 35% is already a challenge, in and of itself.