We are less than one month away from the Indian Ocean Conference on Sustainable Development (IOC-SD) that will be held in Antananarivo on November 4-5. Hosting the regional conference demonstrates Madagascar’s commitment to reaching the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030 by involving both the public and the private sectors.

Entrenching SDGs in our Industrial Policy

UN agencies reaffirm that industrialization is a key element in sustainable development. Today, the Malagasy industrial system is based upon an industrial policy which clearly does not consider sustainable development goals and optimal management of natural resources. Following the UN’s recommendations, many signatory countries have entrenched SDGs in their industrial policies. Indian Ocean countries must march to the beat of the same drum.

Romy Andrianarisoa, President of the Sustainable Development and Business Ethics Commission within the GEM (Groupement des Entreprises de Madagascar), ambitions to draft a regional industrial policy for Indian Ocean (IO) countries in order to make progress at the same pace. More broadly, industries and businesses of all sizes must consider SDGs as Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), above and beyond the legitimate aim of maximizing profits and return on investment. Social and environmental impacts, decent work, and women and youth involvement are among the criteria to be taken into account. “Big Malagasy firms have managed to integrate SDGs into their corporate policies, which is not the case for smaller structures, and even some big companies,” Ms. Andrianarisoa notes. She adds that such innovation is hard to build without the expertise and involvement of UN agencies such as the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO).

Ms. Andrianarisoa explains that IO countries will build on existing experience and cases of best practice in other countries. The IOC-SD will be an opportunity for 30 business promoters to get technical support and act as real actors for sustainable development, but also for any other company to attend the event and understand the whole mechanism.

IOC-SD: the Public and Private Sectors Side by Side

The IOC-SD will be presided and hosted by Madagascar on November 4-5, 2022. 200 companies from seven islands (Madagascar, Mayotte, Comoros, Mauritius, Seychelles, Reunion and Maldives) and ten delegations from these islands and three partner countries (Morocco, the United Arab Emirates, India) will be involved in the IOC-SD. Delegations include companies and investors, financial and technical partners, ministers, experts, academia, and media.

The first phase of the project (pre IOC-SD) was launched right after the COP26 conference in Glasgow last year. 30 projects focusing on three main themes (Blue Economy, Carbon Offset, and Global Warming) from the seven islands will be presented to potential investors. Ms. Andrianarisoa reports that Madagascar is now screening the projects, including projects from different regions. They will be implemented by 2030, and their progress will be measured on an annual basis. One by one, each of the seven IO islands will host an annual conference between 2022 and 2028. The closing conference will be hosted in Madagascar once again in 2029.

Madagascar is committed to fighting against climate change through the National Climate Adaptation Plan. The President of the Republic of Madagascar and different Malagasy ministries have praised and are supportive of the IOC-SD initiative which is co-led by TF261 agency (the organizing team) and UNDP.

Edited by Kenny Raharison