WaterAid works with local partner organizations, who understand local issues, to deliver integrated water, sanitation and hygiene services to poor communities across Madagascar.

As well as establishing practical field projects, we campaign locally and nationally to establish and implement national safe water and sanitation strategies.

The world's fourth largest island, Madagascar lies to the south east of mainland Africa, 400km from Mozambique. Its isolation provides it with an unique and intensely rich plant and animal kingdom but at the same time, means it faces a constant battle with poverty. Seventy percent of the population live below the poverty line.

The percentage of the population with access to safe water and sanitation is very low and differs hugely between rural and urban areas. Only 14% of the rural population has access to safe water compared to 66% of the urban population, while 7.5% of the rural and 27% of the urban population have access to adequate sanitation.

WaterAid's achievements to date

• Worked with the national government and different organizations towards the establishment and implementation of an achievable sanitation strategy
• Worked with our partner organizations to replicate innovative urban sanitation projects
• Helped three of the four largest water supply NGOs to integrate hygiene and sanitation with safe water initiatives
• Acted as a driving force behind the international WASH (water, sanitation and hygiene) initiative in Madagascar, which brings together and unites the efforts of organizations to work effectively in partnership

Valy, a pupil at Ankafotra school in Madagascar, washes her hands at the school’s new water point. Credit: WaterAid / Marco Betti

After 10 years in Madagascar, WaterAid now supports five main partner organizations in aiding impoverished communities to set up, operate and maintain their own community water and sanitation facilities.  We encourage the use of appropriate low cost technologies and support local hygiene programs so that the health benefits of projects are maximized.

Our projects are located in both the rural and urban areas of the three most impoverished Madagascan provinces.  Our partners are local NGOs with many years' experience in providing water supplies, through gravity-fed schemes, well construction and the locally manufactured rope pump.

In 2005 WaterAid and its partners undertook two new projects to raise awareness about hygiene and sanitation and its impact on community life.

The 'Sanitation In My Neighborhood' photographic competition encouraged elementary schoolchildren to take pictures of the water and saniation problems and solutions in their communities. The resulting national and local exhibitions sparked debates within the communities and local governments on how best to introduce better water and sanitation facilities.

A study called 'Looking Back' found that projects providing safe and convenient water supplies meant that communities were healthier and better off.  Spending less time collecting water enabled them to include other activities into their daily lives such as farming, study and weaving.

WaterAid is also forming links and networks with organizations with similar aims across the country to feed into wider policy debates. With a stable government in place, water and sanitation have been prioritized.

The country's needs, however, continue to be great and require a considerable increase in government, NGO and private sector support as well as greater coordination to provide sustainable, safe water services, adequate sanitation and hygiene education. 

WaterAid is therefore raising awareness of the need for integrated projects so that hygiene education and sanitation are seen as equally important as safe water. 

We continue to play a key role in the wider international WASH campaign advocating for water, sanitation and hygiene for all. This campaign promotes messages such as washing hands with soap, effective use of hygienic latrines and safe transport and storage of water from the tap to the point of use.

Download WaterAid's Madagascar information sheet (PDF 331.33KB)

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