Down-and-out in Antananarivo

As the fire truck rolled down the Ambohidahy Tunnel hosing the pedestrian walkway, a small knot of homeless people - children included - gathered up their belongings and ran. One woman, who with the other down-and-outs had planned to make the tunnel in the heart of Antananarivo her home for the night, tried to hide in a stairwell but got a blast of cold water aimed at her. "Did you see what they did to us?" she asked, after the fire truck pulled away. This is urban cleansing Madagascar style. Since 2003, the capital Antananarivo has been running a clean-up operation along the main thoroughfares where the homeless find shelter. Regularly, city workers hose and fumigate these night camps. Sometimes the clean-ups are followed by round-ups. "We are working with the Ministry of Population to move these people to other villages [away] from the streets, the tunnels, the arcades; we don't want to see them anymore," said Arinosy Razafimbelo, in charge of Antananarivo's central district. As part of a joint agreement between the city (Commune Urbaine d'Antananarivo) and the ministry, the homeless are rounded up and trucked to government land, ranging as far as 20-100 km from the capital. But, however hard the authorities try and relocate the destitute, an estimated 40 percent find their way back to Antananarivo. City officials insist both land and shelter is provided for the homeless at the government sites, which should be enough of an inducement for them to stay out of the overcrowded capital. However, Lalao Rasoahanitrinion at the Ministry of Population acknowledged that the facilities are not always adequate. Jano, aged 39, who currently spends his nights in Antsahabe, another of Antananarivo's tunnels, was dropped off at one of the government's resettlement sites at Amboanjobe, about 20 km from the city. "They gave us a house, but no land to cultivate. We were obliged to return to Tana [Antananarivo] to resume our jobs picking up trash [for sale] because we had nothing to do and couldn't grow anything." No official figure exists for the number of homeless in Antananarivo. The Ministry of Population estimates a total of 1,600 - including adults and children. The NGO Terre des Hommes puts the figure at 1,500 to 2,000 children, and the NGO Graines de Bitume believes the number to be five times larger, with at least 10,000 children on the streets. Around 70 percent of Madagascar's population is rural based, and as a result, efforts to fight poverty and promote development have tended to focus on the countryside. However, according to the National Institute of Statistics (Instat), between 2001 and 2004, the number of urban poor in Madagascar increased by 10 percent (from 44 percent to 54 percent). In the same period, rural poverty remained stable at around 77 percent. Luc Arnaud, director of the nutrition NGO, GRET, points out that the child malnutrition rates in the southern Androy region – often considered the poorest area of Madagascar – hovers at around 28 percent. In the worst-affected neighbourhoods of the capital, the rate is about 60 percent.

Tana's homeless by the Antsahabe Tunnel

Urban poverty was exacerbated by a seven-month political crisis at the beginning of 2002 following a disputed election that divided the country; a steep devaluation of the local currency, the Ariary; a rice shortage in 2004; and now rising oil prices have served to stoke inflation. But when asked to identify the primary cause of poverty in Antananarivo, city officials and aid workers alike focus on a more immediate problem: unemployment. Official figures on joblessness are based on the registered unemployed, giving a rate of just 5 percent. But the vast majority of Malagasy work in the informal sector, uncounted and untaxed. Although the homeless constitute some of the more obviously distressed members of society, NGOs and aid workers estimate that at least 60 percent of Antananarivo's residents live on less than a dollar a day - a general gauge of poverty. "Soixante-sept hectare" is one of Antananarivo's low-lying districts, subject to flooding and home to the city's poor. Here people pay rent for small shacks that just clear the water level of the surrounding flood plain during much of the rainy season. The majority of residents in "67" work in the informal sector: street vendors, washerwomen, porters, and charcoal sellers. When they can find work, they usually make less than 50 cents a day. And yet the atmosphere here is productive and busy. According to a handful of residents, most of them "manage to get by", and "everyone who can" sends her children to school. Despite limited resources, the city has partnered with several NGOs in an EU-funded Urban Local Development project that is attempting to build capacity in neighbourhood associations to identify and manage local needs, such as communal water taps, latrines, washing areas, and sewage systems. "In Tana, management is the management of urgency. All the time," pointed out city planner and advisor to the mayor, Georges Lamoure. "With approximately 1.2 million inhabitants in the central district alone, [Antananarivo] has the same budget as a town of 8,000 to 10,000 people in Europe."