Since its first project in February 1977 in the country, the Bank Group has regularly provided significant and diversified support to Madagascar’s development efforts characterized by a well-balanced sector distribution: agriculture, 27.6%; infrastructure, 24.2%; water and sanitation, 11.1%; social, 10.5%; and multi-sector, 26.7%. The country's water and sanitation sector has made significant progress over the last years and the AfDB has become the country’s leading partner in this sector. In another particularly sensitive area - debt relief - Madagascar has already benefited from relief worth US$80 million under the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative to which AfDB is a party.

In order to speed up poverty reduction efforts, Malagasy authorities have just developed a new Vision for Madagascar for 2012 called “ Madagascar Naturally”. The purpose  of this vision is to promote sector development strategies so as to help the country make a qualitative leap and promote strong, sustained growth. This is in order to contribute to reducing the country’s poverty and enabling it to benefit from globalization challenges in compliance with the Millennium Development Goals. The specific goals of this Vision include:

• Increasing agricultural production by 100% in 5 years
• Increasing agricultural exports by 100% in 5 years
• Increasing industrial textile production by 50% in 5 years and by 200% in 10 years
• Developing agro-industrial food production by 50% in 5 years and 150% in 10 years
• Increasing the annual number of tourists from 160,000 in 2003 to 400,000 in 5 years and to 800,000 in 10 years.

Bank Group Strategy

Given that the incidence of poverty is higher in rural areas, the rural sector's development occupies a key position in the Bank Group's strategy aimed at attaining the MDG goal of halving poverty by in 2015. Also, in order to effectively contribute to the achievement of this objective, the long-term outcome targeted by the strategy will be increased agricultural and fishing production in rural areas in the south of the country in order to increase income and reduce poverty in rural areas. The intervention thrusts for the country defined by the “Madagascar Action Plan” covering the years 2007-2012 clearly open new perspectives under ADF XI. The Madagascar Country Office aims to achieve four strategic objectives, namely, strengthening dialogue with the national authorities, dialogue with the development partners, improved portfolio management monitoring, and enhanced Bank visibility in Madagascar.