THE AMCHAM POST - April 08 2023
On March 23rd, AmCham hosted its first traditional Thursday Morning Roundtable of the year at Radisson Blu Hotel, Antananarivo Waterfront. Mrs. Anne Williams - the Mission Director of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in Madagascar – honored the occasion as the guest speaker, alongside AmCham’s members and friends. She delivered a private sector-oriented perspective of what the USAID could bring to the business community in Madagascar.
USAID in Madagascar
The USAID’s expenditures in the country amount to around 200 million US Dollars in total. Slightly more than a half of those are allocated to development while the remaining budget is dedicated to bring additional supports for humanitarian assistance, especially in the southern and the south-eastern part of Madagascar. The USAID which works on various areas such as health, population, nutrition, sustainable environment and economic development, integrated disaster and emergency assistance actually contributes with about 80 percent of the investments for a project in collaboration with WASH in order to provide potable water to population.
Besides, Anne Williams put emphasis on USAID’s collaboration with the private sector to a crowd of business leaders. “The private sector is a critical part of any inclusive economic growth. We strongly feel that we need to be able to leverage the funding that US citizens are providing to us in order to be able to support Madagascar and local communities.” she stated. An annual investment of 28 million US dollars is granted by the agency to the private sector in Madagascar. Most of which are dedicated to biodiversity conservation. USAID collaborates with many companies and supports many activities which concern biodiversity. In that way, it supports vanilla farmers with technical and financial assistance, for instance. “Madagascar, as a country rich of biodiversity, needs more investments in the sector. That is the reason why increasing the revenue of farmers by providing a technical assistance and making sure of the quality of their products are among the actions that USAID takes on.” she added.
Feed the Future initiative
The private sector didn’t spare their concern regarding the involvement of the USAID in them. Actually, they seek to bolster their position for the benefit of the economic growth. Apparently, USAID allocates more budgets for assistance than in economic empowerment program so far. In order to increase the support of the private sector, the agency advocates to both the US and Madagascar government to bring more focus on the Feed the Future initiative. This latter intends to develop the agriculture sectors of the population in partner countries and to break the vicious cycle of poverty and hunger. It helps people feed themselves and creates important opportunities for a new generation of young people, while building a more stable world. “Growth comes through a very inclusive process. USAID is fighting to get an increase in the Feed the Future project. We use the biodiversity funding to give opportunities to local population so that they can increase their revenue after we build their capacity; and most importantly to save the protected areas.” she ensures.
Again, the private sector would have to adopt at least a sustainable policy for their activities, especially if they were to rely at some point on USAID’s assistance.
AmCham’s next TMRT will be held in April, with the sponsorship of TaptapSend.
Co-written by Maherintsoa Andrianiaina and Joycia Andriamifidy Neste
