WASHINGTON, March 1st, 2019 ¨C ľ¹ÏÓ°Ôº Board of Directors approved today a $52 million International Development Association (IDA)* grant to Madagascar in support of the agriculture rural growth and land management project. This additional financing will scale up the support to land registration and strengthen the production of basic agricultural statistics which are crucial to guide agricultural policy analysis and decision making.
¡°The initial Madagascar Agriculture Rural Growth and Land Management Project (CASEF), which is being implemented since September 2016, has already benefited more than 228,000 agricultural households, said Coralie Gevers, World Bank Country Manager for Madagascar. ¡°Agriculture involves about 80 percent of the population and has the potential to lift millions of Malagasy out of poverty. Unless land rights and ownership are secured, farmers are unlikely to make long term investments in the land that they use. This is why the World Bank is committed to further assist the Government in implementing its national strategy of land certification and bringing these benefits to many more communities.¡±
This additional financing will target the issuance of 2 million additional land certificates through systematic registration by June 2022 and will support 309 additional Communal Land Offices, bringing the total under the project from 191 to 500. With a total target of delivering 2.5 million certificates, CASEF will support the largest land intervention to date in Madagascar. This project will also aim at tackling the existing gender gap in women¡¯s land rights, by registering rights under women¡¯s names (either alone or jointly) on 1.1 million parcels. The project areas under the component ¡°Support to land policy and land rights registration¡± will expand from the initial seven regions to nine additional regions: Diana, Sava, Boeny, Betsiboka, Sofia, Alaotra Mangoro, Bongolava, Haute Matsiatra, and Amoron¡¯i Mania.
The additional financing will furthermore support the production of basic agricultural statistics. An important focus will be on improving information on value chains. A data warehouse will be designed and developed to support the integration and harmonization of agricultural data.
