Strong Support for Weak Performance: State and Donors Mutual Dependence in Madagascar

Abstract

"Although the Malagasy state's ability to meet its developmental and environmental conservation goals has remained weak since independence, Madagascar has never suffered a shortage of foreign assistance. What explains such weak development and environmental performance despite steady inflows of foreign aid? By the same token, why has aid continually come to Madagascar despite the state's weak performance? Building on the scholarship linking foreign aid and development, I examine how the Malagasy state has adapted its development rhetoric since independence, capitalizing on the country's biodiversity starting in the mid- 1980s, to show that maximizing foreign aid rather than strengthening the state's development capacity per se has been the state's de facto primary goal. I further argue that without foreign aid both the state and donor organizations would cease to thrive as institutions. Given the similarities between Madagascar and other aid-recipient countries, this analysis should prove useful beyond the Malagasy case."