Ecotourism in Madagascar - Responsible Tourism: Critical Issues for Conservation and Development - page 28

Coordination of activities with stakeholders at national,
regional and local levels
Increasing efforts from the Malagasy public and private sector and, in recent
years, from donor organizations and NGOs have been very intense, especially for
ecotourism development. Unfortunately, there is no one body to streamline the
different activities of the stakeholders into one common programme, as has been
done in some other countries. For a destination that publicly announces that it
wants to become one of the main ecotourism destinations worldwide, this is not
an encouraging base. Therefore, it is increasingly important that one institution
takes the lead in coordinating and streamlining the various efforts of the different
stakeholders into one programme. Normally this would be the role of the acting
Ministry of Tourism but this has not been the case: neither the former 'Ministry of
Culture and Tourism', nor its successor the 'Ministry of Transport and Tourism'
have taken up this task. The disorganization of ecotourism development was
deepened by the lack of links between the different Ministries responsible for
tourism in the past and the Ministry for Environment, Water and Forest. In
addition, the links to tourism administration in the provinces are still difficult and
hindered by energy supply, technical problems (e.g. internet access) as well as
cultural disagreements between the capital and the coast. Therefore people from
the provinces often feel excluded from the development process, which creates
frustration and tension.
At the time of writing, it seems that the merger of the Ministry of Tourism and
the Ministry of Environment, Water and Forest in November 2007, has created
the role of a leading institution for ecotourism development for the first time. The
necessary decisions are being made more quickly and information is being
channelled more effectively to the regional offices for implementation.
Concerning the public-private relationship, the private sector was accus-
tomed to not expecting help from the Ministry when it needed to solve tourism
development problems. Business owners grew accustomed to solving those
problems that should have been regulated by the responsible institutions at the
national and regional level (e.g. ensuring tourists' security, preservation of the
environment, establishing training programmes, promoting the country outside).
There exists an urgent need for the administration to take over these roles and
responsibilities so that the private sector can focus on moving forward with their
businesses.
Concerning donors' roles, it was not unusual in the past for two donors to
develop the same plan and therefore spend double the amount of money to
achieve the same goal. This resulted from a lack of communication. Fortunately,
donors have started to communicate and work more intensively together on
ecotourism development (e.g. the MIARO programme bringing together
USAID, Conservation International and the World Conservation Society, IFC's
concession programme linked to the World Conservation Society, Conservation
International and Kreditanstaltfür Wiederausbau (KFW). Regarding ecotourism
activities from the private sector and local populations and the NGO and donor