This article is a situational analysis of the current political environment in Madagascar prior to the November 2018 general elections. 

Madagascar is one of 27 countries around the world which continues to deny women the ability to confer citizenship on their children on an equal basis with men. Twenty MPs have committed to reform the current law.

With its wealth of natural resources, Madagascar has the potential for healthy economic growth, yet remains mostly poor. The government must stop elites from fighting over national profits in a way that keeps plunging the country into turmoil and recession

A Chinese company in Madagascar, with strong links to the government, is accused of unlawfully acquiring land, blighting the environment and leaving farmers destitute

Madagascar, a country rich in natural resources and potential to sustain its own development even though its people is one of the poorest is the world, is facing strong pressures of land grabbing by local and foreign investors at the expense of peasant and local communities

Incomes have slipped to their lowest level in a decade since Madagascar’s 2009 coup d’etat, and, in parallel, domestic violence has sharply risen. The rising poverty has exacerbated women’s vulnerability in this deeply traditional society. Locals report more domestic conflict over family resources, as well as increased alcohol and drug abuse. Impoverished women also have fewer options to escape violence and are less able to advocate for the safety of themselves and their children.

A Civil Society Initiative has been set up to preserve the ‘collective memory’ of Madagascar by digitally archiving videos detailing its, often controversial, history. Reasons for controversy include disagreement over the tragedy of the 1947 Malagasy Uprising, a perspective limited by language, as well as destruction of historical archives during political crises.

Madagascar is bracing for billion dollar revenue with its flagship Amabatovy mining project set to start exports of nickel and cobalt whose extraction is expected to last 30 years. The project will invest about $5.5 billion, the majority of which is funded by a consortium of 12 banks under the supervision of the World Bank.

Madagascar's deposed ex-president Marc Ravalomanana has arrived in the Seychelles ahead of landmark talks with current leader Andry Rajoelina. The 15-nation Southern African Development Community (SADC), which is mediating in the crisis, is expected to bring the two men face to face on Wednesday. SADC has set a 31 July deadline for the two rivals to settle their differences so that a timetable for elections in Madagascar can be unveiled next week.

Madagascar’s army said Sunday 22 July it had put down a mutiny in a military camp Sunday, after clashes in which at least three people were killed. 'Mopping up operations are continuing,' said Rarasoa Ralailomady, the army's chief spokesman. 'A night operation has not been ruled out but the situation is under control.' The army also announced that they had neutralized the mutiny leader nicknamed 'Koto Mainty' aka Black Caporal.

An estimated one million people in Madagascar are diabetic, but only about half of them know it. Finding the other half presents a major challenge for this large, island nation in which 80 per cent of the population live in rural areas where few people have ever heard of this chronic and potentially deadly disease. With the country’s underfunded public health sector barely functioning, this task has mainly fallen to the Madagascan Diabetes Association which dispatches its doctors and nurses to the provinces to conduct blood sugar tests and raise awareness at fairs, schools and health centres.

Every Friday, mothers and their children gather at the community nutrition centre in the little village of Rantolava, 450 kilometres north east of Antananarivo, the Malagasy capital, to learn more about a healthy diet. The weekly workshops are part of the 3.5 million dollar National Community Nutrition Programme (PNNC) being implemented at 6,000 centres across the country. Madagascar is among the six countries suffering the worst rates of malnutrition in the world – half of all children under five on this large island nation suffer from chronic malnutrition, and diversifying their diet is a key element in the national programme.

Madagascar has launched an online research network, the Research and Education Network for Academic Learning Activities (iRENALA), which aims to boost science, technology and education in the country, as well as internationalise its science. The network, launched earlier this month (8 June), will promote discussions between worldwide researchers, students and policymakers, and facilitate access to digitised documents available in virtual libraries, according to Horace Gatien, president of Toamasina University. It will also encourage remote learning in the higher education sector, he said.

The Basic Health Centre or Centre de Santé de Base (CSB) II in Anjalajala, near Antsohihy, the capital of Madagascar's northern Sofia Region, is housed in a recently renovated building and its status as a CSB II promises the availability of a trained doctor. But the doctor left for Antananarivo, the capital, in 2002 and has not been replaced, and whenever the remaining nurse is absent, services stop. The situation at this clinic is not unique in Madagascar, where an already weak healthcare system has been in a state of decline since 2009 when the international community branded Andry Rajoelina's ousting of President Marc Ravalomanana a coup, and donors halted all but emergency aid.

Madagascar has a low level of HIV prevalence, and managing its AIDS programme should present no major difficulties. But the apparent advantage of a low infection rate, combined with the ongoing political crisis, has brought its own challenges. Madagascar, and the neighbouring islands states of Comoros, Mauritius and Seychelles, are anomalies in the context of HIV/AIDS in Africa. Prevalence is very low - around 0.37 per cent, or 24,000 confirmed cases - and restricted to a few sections of the population. Recent research has revealed that the groups most infected are men having sex with men (14 per cent), intravenous drug users (7 per cent) and prison populations. HIV prevalence among female commercial sex workers is relatively low.

Daughters as young as 12 in the villages surrounding Antsohihy, the capital of Sofia Region, in Madagascar's remote, traditional north, often suffer the harmful consequences of falling pregnant and giving birth too young when parents accept zebus (cattle) or cash as a dowry. Nationwide, 3,750 mothers and 16,500 babies die each year during or soon after delivery. Another 75,000 women experience medical problems as a result of childbirth, and an estimated 40 per cent of these women receive insufficient care.

Madagascan security forces Saturday fired tear-gas to disperse a crowd of opposition supporters who attempted to gather in the capital Antananarivo. The meeting had been organised by deposed President Marc Ravalomanana allies to discuss development issues. About three people were arrested and about forty injured during the fracas.

The April edition of the Peace and Security Council Report from the Institute of Security Studies has an article which focuses on the situation in Madagascar. 'Against the backdrop of serious obstacles in the process of implementing the Roadmap, the Malagasy military staged protests in March 2012 to air their grievances about poor living and working conditions,' notes the report. 'SADC’s failure to resolutely monitor and guarantee the implementation of the fragile Roadmap risks a relapse into violence in Madagascar,' it says later.

In Madagascar's east coast city of Tamatave, a local taboo against having a toilet in your house or on your land has complicated the task of trying to improve the region's dire sanitation situation. Nationwide, more than 10,000 people, of whom two thirds are children under five, die prematurely from diarrhoea annually, according to the World Health Organization, which attributes 88 per cent of these cases to poor quality water and sanitation.

Madagascar is aiming to plug its energy gap and reduce its carbon emissions by encouraging a major investment in large-scale wind-turbines, the country’s interim president, Andry Rajoelina, has announced. Unofficial figures put the cost of the initiative at US$80 million. But experts say that instead of importing costly infrastructure, the country should make micro-wind power stations from locally available materials.