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Madagascar

Madagascar: El Niño impact assessment highlights, May 2024

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Background

Agricultural production in Madagascar is primarily based on rainfed systems and, therefore, heavily influenced by variations in precipitation patterns. The east coast and highlands generally experience abundant rainfall, while rainfall drops to less than 500 mm per year in the south and southwest.

Agriculture is central to Madagascar’s economy, employing 70 percent of the population, and contributing to 37 percent of exports and 21 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) (World Bank, 2024). Most of the rural population relies on agriculture, and 80 percent live in poverty. Smallholder farmers, which make up the bulk of the agriculture sector, are particularly vulnerable to climatic shocks such as droughts and cyclones, owing to limited resources, lack of formal social safety nets, physical isolation and chronic high levels of food insecurity and poverty. In October 2023, before the lean season, 17 percent of the population in Grand Sud region was already facing Crisis levels of acute food insecurity (Integrated Food Security Phase Classification [IPC] Phase 3).

During the 2023/24 main cropping season, a positive Indian Ocean Dipole was observed, contributing to increased rainfall in eastern Africa and parts of Madagascar. This potentially moderated some of the drier conditions that typically accompany El Niño. However, El Niño still exerted a strong influence, leading to erratic weather patterns with alternating wet and dry spells across the region. Tropical cyclones Alvaro and Gamane may have been fueled by these altered atmospheric patterns. The northern and eastern parts experienced increased rainfall, leading to flooding, while the southern regions became drier, increasing the risk of drought.

In the southern parts of the country, dry spells were particularly intense in February and March, and an increase in rainfall volumes in April–May was too late and insufficient to offset deficits earlier in the cropping season. In the east, cumulative rainfall quantities ranged from 75–750 mm from January to May, peaking in February, March and May, causing floods in the southeast that affected rice production in localized areas.

In the north, tropical cyclone Gamane landed in March causing severe flooding and infrastructure damage.