Participatory 3D Modelling, a powerful development tool for Madagascan associations

Interview with Rajoelisolo Kotondrajaona, Secretary General of the liaison office for Rural Training Institutions -  by Andriatiana Mamy

Rajoelisolo Kotondrajaona, Secretary General of the Liaison Office for Rural Training Institutions in Madagascar (BIMTT), is an enthusiastic supporter of participatory 3-D models. Having attended the participatory 3-D modelling exercise led by a CTA team in Madagascar, he argues that this is a powerful multi-purpose tool that will be invaluable for the development of his association.

You've been very keen to adopt 3-D modelling. Why do you describe it as a multi-purpose tool?

Rajoelisolo Kotondrajaona: Absolutely. Initially we were just curious because it was something new, but we've been very quick to adopt the process. Our organisation has a longstanding collaboration with CTA, and in 2015 my team and I attended training on participatory 3-D mapping delivered by Farmer Technology Agriculture (FTA), an organisation supported by CTA. We followed the process of making a village model. I was fascinated by the whole setup, the work atmosphere and especially the way that people got involved in different aspects of the process. Everyone had a specific role: children and young people cut up cardboard boxes, adults did the plotting and added factual data, and older people shared their memories about the history of the village. Everyone worked together around the map, united by the same objective of reconstituting the history and showing detailed information about the village. You could see how it pulled everyone together: young and old, technicians and practitioners, members of the community and officials from modern and traditional authorities. I suddenly realised how 3-D modelling exercises could help our association, as our main concern is to promote synergy between actions and develop collaboration between members and the outside world, while strengthening everyone's technical and pedagogical capacities. This is a fantastic tool that's going to make our work so much easier. The most important thing is not the model itself, but the effect it has, the way it creates a convivial atmosphere, broadens individual values and viewpoints, confirms the identity of the community and facilitates a process of shared discovery and joint decisions about projects ...The whole 3-D modelling process involves gathering information, analysing the situation, lobbying, awareness raising, exploration, capitalisation, decision making, territorial management, monitoring ... It really is a multi-functional tool.

What is the main focus of your organisation?

Rajoelisolo Kotondrajaona: BIMTT is an association of over 90 organisations that are attached to the Council of Christian Churches in Madagascar (FFKM). These organisations may be research institutions, development agencies, NGOs, state or private technical agricultural departments, farmer groups, etc. Our main mission is to organise discussions, develop members' capacity to link up with each other and with other institutions, and strengthen their technical and pedagogical capacities so that they can work effectively to encourage initiatives and innovations in the field. We're a big network that covers the whole of the main island. It's also worth noting that the Christian community has a huge influence on development in Madagascar. Statistics show that 70% of rural training centres in Madagascar are attached to the church – although our member organisations collaborate with all farmers, regardless of their religion. What we're interested in is how activities link up with and complement each other, and how to organise interventions so that activities and organisations don't overlap. It's all about synergy – how to consolidate members, make them organisationally and economically autonomous, help them conquer local and then international markets! BIMTT provides all kinds of managerial support. Every member organisation has its own project and activities, and we're there to help them, build their capacities and strengthen their internal and external collaboration.

How can P3DM help your network? How can it improve the synergy between your activities?

Rajoelisolo Kotondrajaona: One of the current weaknesses of our network is that members work in isolation, everyone's in their own little corner. We need to work together to improve the quality and quantity of our output! As artisanal sculptors know to their cost, Madagascar is seen as a kind of test country – good for a few samples but not large orders. We've got some areas where projects are vying to do the same activity in one place, but nothing next door. Our technicians worry that local people are becoming resistant to change, especially when intervening agencies contradict each other! There's a crying need for coordination, for synergy between activities, and for people to exchange ideas. All this can be done around a 3-D map. Local people, the authorities and other actors in Ampefy have started discussing how to protect Lake Itasy, which is the second biggest lake in Madagascar and is seriously threatened by environmental degradation. 3-D maps can also help those of our members that lack the resources, enthusiasm and information to get development projects off the ground. For example, during a P3DM exercise in the village of Andranomafana Betafo Antsirabe, which had recurrent problems with drinking water, discussions started around the possibility of installing a well-placed fountain that could serve the whole village. People became enthusiastic and individuals got involved. One of our main activities at the moment is helping communities where our members work to prepare communal and village development plans (CDPs and VDPs). Most of our members are closely involved in this kind of activity, and these plans are a vital development tool for communities that are seeking assistance and funding. These communities need to take responsibility for their own future, and be committed and informed so that they can engage in the development process ... Which is where 3-D modelling comes in. Our technicians are familiar with participatory 2-D mapping and doing sketches on bits of packaging, but 3-D models are so much better because they are accurate, concrete, accessible to everyone regardless of whether or not they can read, easy to understand, participatory and dynamic. They also cost half as much as CDPs, which need expensive surveys. In fact, 3-D maps are an effective tool for designing these communal development plans because they involve different village actors, encourage exchanges and discussions, gather information and show the history of the village, preventive measures to be taken and even decisions that have been made. Over time, data are updated and everyone helps put the new information on the model. They are a quick, participatory and affordable way of getting the job done. In short, they're just what people need!

How has the network appropriated the P3DM process?

Rajoelisolo Kotondrajaona: After the FTA training, which was supported by CTA, our board of directors unanimously supported the idea of sharing this tool with different members of the network. BIMTT produced a documentary film about the P3DM process, which was shown on national TV, and sent every member a DVD of it. This tool is generating a lot of enthusiasm, but it'll be a few years before we have the budget or capacity to scale up the process among all our members. BIMTT has selected the first five localities where models will be produced. Three will be of mid-western villages – Atalata Vaovao, Mahiatrondro and Ampanasanatongotra in Itasy region; one model will cover the commune of Andranomafana in the central highlands of Betafo, and the last one will be of Sahoragna fishing village in the east coast of Toamasina province.

How will these models be funded?

Rajoelisolo Kotondrajaona: BIMTT has not received any funding for these models apart from pedagogical and documentary support from CTA. We're not expected to fund their production – that's up to each member institution. But as I said, members are interested, and I'm hoping that this will be reflected in their next investment budget. BIMTT's mission is to support its members, and this includes helping them find financial partners for 3-D modelling. At the moment we're trying to find ways of helping with the overall costs of modelmaking. We managed to limit the time spent on 3-D mapping to two days (plus preparation) without compromising the participatory spirit of the process, and after lobbying CTA our technicians received training on ARCGIS software so that they can produce the contour maps that are needed to make the models. This is really important because these maps take up almost half of the overall budget for producing a model: the total cost per model is 1.4 million ariary (650 Euros), and the national mapping centre (FTM) sells contour maps for 800,000 ariary (250 Euros).

What are your plans for the future?

Rajoelisolo Kotondrajaona: Over the next two years we plan to train at least one technician for each of our 91 member institutions. That should give us at least 200 trained technicians and about 200 models. The idea is to start training trainers so that every member will get on-the-job training as they go through the participatory model-making process, and can then train the people they go on to collaborate with. The ultimate plan is for the whole network to make 3-D models that can be used for communal and village development plans so that member organisations and communities can use them to take charge of their own development.

Interview by Mamy Andriatiana

Strength from synergy: Bringing communities together to better support them

Financial partners and technical ministerial departments believe that support for rural Madagascans will be more effective if it is delivered to clusters of village and community groups, associations and communes. In 2014 the government opted for a market economy-oriented policy to promote rural development, and adopted various measures to improve the quality and quantity of outputs. One idea was to promote village associations – the bigger, the better – with associations of groups, federated associations, platforms for federations and clusters of communes. These groupings make it easier to coordinate activities and strengthen synergies between actions, and are favoured by partners and country managers as they tend to result in more secure and efficient projects and businesses and more flexible and harmonious arrangements for training, credit, finance, repayments, skill transfers and monitoring of activities. They also enable support organisations to collaborate on assistance to large associations that work in various fields. In the region of Itasy in mid-western Madagsacar, the Swiss Cooperation co-financed inter-communal cooperation through the SAHA programme and the American development agency USAID. Three communes (Ampefy, Analavory and Anosibe Ifanja) formed the 3A Miroso association. There are about 100 groups of associations listed in this region, including a group of village associations supported by the Regional Directorate for Rural Development, the Lutheran NGO FAFAFI, the Protestant NGO SAF Fjkm, the Catholic NGO ADDM, and BIMTT... The 3-D modelling process encourages community solidarity and collaboration between support organisations, and in doing so helps create greater synergy between their actions.

• Participatory 3D modelling to increase synergy between village projects and to contribute to more holistic development

Community development in Madagascar is often hampered by a lack of synergy between different local initiatives. Now project managers in areas where the Participatory 3-Dimensional Modelling (P3DM) process has been developed are hoping that this new technique can help harmonise and coordinate different development actions.

"Help! There's too much aid!" This headline on a rural affairs magazine probably stopped development project promoters and readers in the Madagascan capital in their tracks – but it reflects a growing feeling among beneficiaries that poorly coordinated interventions have created chaos rather than harmonious development. "Things would be so much better if partners gave the matter just a little concerted thought" sighed a farmer's leader in Anjazafotsy (Betafo District). The negative effects of the situation are all too clear in this rural commune of Andranomafana, where local development is confused, chaotic and hampered by resistance to change, inability to commit to projects and problems preparing development plans ...

Lack of coordination

Unbalanced development is one of the first signs of a lack of coordination that has left some communities in certain areas inundated with projects while their neighbours have none. The commune of Andranomafana is a case in point, as there are five projects in the north of this small community (48 km²) and none in the south. One woman thinks this is because "people the south are less educated as they're a long way from the highway," but deputy mayor Solofo Marc Rakotondrafara blames it on lack of coordination, arguing that intervening agencies are disorganised and choose their intervention areas and themes without consulting other actors. Rajorosoana Razafimahatratra, a technician with the Liaison Office for Rural Training Institutions (BIMTT) reckons that "Everyone's out for themselves, there are no understandings between different agencies". Local people are baffled as to why two projects are getting ready to conduct similar activities in the same village – one providing drinking water while the other tackles open defecation. The village chief thinks "it would have been better to combine both activities in a single water and sanitation project, which would avoid creating divisions between beneficiaries and make it much easier to mobilize people behind the project." The situation is exacerbated by the fact that poor organisation affects the quality of services, and contradictory messages sent out by these development projects make many beneficiaries reluctant to engage with them. The administration encourages people to register their parcels at the local land office in order to obtain land certificates, but they still can't get credit because financial institutions don't recognise these certificates. "I wish they'd come to some kind of agreement" said one farmers' leader who needs money to fund his next production cycle. While technicians worry that this situation will make local people resistant to innovation, project beneficiaries are not the only ones who are missing out – the managers of development programmes are finding it increasingly difficult to get their initiatives off the ground. The regional director of rural development in Miarinarivo, Serge Andriamiarinera, says that preparing development plans for his constituency is a real challenge: "It's hard to set up development projects when all the project promoters have different, sometimes conflicting visions."

This context makes it virtually impossible to take a holistic view of the situation and formulate an overarching development plan for the region – leaving promoters wondering how they can ensure that projects in Madagascar address beneficiaries' needs, interconnect with and complement each other, and contribute to a shared vision.

The P3DM process to the rescue!

A possible solution to this embarrassing situation may have been found in the three regions of the main island where participatory 3-dimensional modelling (P3DM) has been developed. BIMTT secretary general Rajoelisolo Kotondrajaona sees P3DM as a unifying process that can encourage greater synergy between village development actions: "P3DM can play a major role in local development ... In fact, I'd say this is its primary purpose, as the three pillars of the process – dialogue, information and solidarity – provide everything that is needed for greater synergy." Participatory modelling is a powerful tool for coordination that encourages dialogue between different actors, provides reliable factual information about the intervention area, and fosters a spirit of solidarity in the action zone.

The case of two communities that had fallen out over local development in north and south Anjazafotsy shows how participatory 3-D modelling can encourage dialogue. The P3DM process drew protagonists together around a map of their two localities, enabling them to overcome their mutual mistrust and talk calmly about the issues surrounding drinking water and reforestation. They are now starting to discuss local development, and several projects are getting under way in the south. The deputy mayor noted how "The fact that everyone met around the model allowed us to start talking about the problem instead of skirting around it as we'd done before."

These 3-D models are also highly informative. Many initiatives are compromised by a lack of information that makes it impossible for actors to get organised and hard for intervening agencies to work together and coordinate activities. In Mahiatrondro, in the mid-western rural commune of Ampefy, information shown on the map about the extent of silting, lack of cultivable land and availability of nurseries alerted participants to the imminent crisis, sharpened everyone's focus on their respective tasks and galvanised them into action to prevent further environmental degradation. This common purpose created its own synergies and coordination as the community took charge of reforestation, the commune identified spaces that needed replanting, and the NGO AGRISUD provided free saplings.

Finally, these models foster solidarity, helping generate the mutual support and sense of unity needed for harmonious development. The village chief noted how the model cultivated a spirit of solidarity in the village of Mahiatrondro (population 3,000): "it was as if everyone was driven by the same spirit of mutual aid and desire to move forward together." Residents held various meetings to show what they had learned from the 3-D model of their village – from the routes used by thieves to sources of water, available land, etc. Working together enabled them to stem the resurgence of road bandits (Dahalo), reduce the damage from bush-fires, develop their own village charter (Dina) and, thanks to their courage and tenacity, get it recognised by the local court.

A holistic vision of territorial development

One of the most valuable aspects of P3DM is its ability to create a holistic representation that includes the socio-cultural, economic and environmental aspects of a particular area. The bird's-eye view provided by the models gives all participants a shared perspective of their locality and, according to one BIMTT technician, "generates natural synergies." Having seen the results of the P3DM process in Miarinarivo, the regional director of rural development is keen to scale it up across all the areas under his jurisdiction. "I'm setting up a regional development project, and know that it will be greatly helped by the information the model provides, the atmosphere it creates and the dialogue it generates." He emphasises the important role that a global vision of the community, the land and the natural resources in the locality plays in producing a comprehensive and relevant development plan. "It enables us to take account of every aspect of the situation, ensure that projects don't overlap with each other and inform intervening agencies about what their counterparts are doing." On the east coast of Madagascar, the Director General for Fisheries, Jean Razafimandimby, is encouraging other areas to produce participatory models as they provide invaluable marine data that can be used to make informed decisions and coordinate actions to promote responsible fishing in this severely threatened marine area. Actors in the marine fishing sector, such as the Regional Directorate for Fisheries, officials in Fenerive-Est town hall, operators and fishermen are planning a workshop to discuss how to coordinate actions and take measures against illegal fishing in the commune.

Having seen how participatory 3-dimensional mapping encourages synergy between development actions at the village level, there are now calls to model larger areas covering one or more communes in order to create synergies on a much larger scale.

Article by Andriatiana Mamy