Carola Bänziger, research assistant at the Institute for Ecopreneurship at the FHNW School of Life Sciences (HLS), is currently working in Madagascar. On the ground, it is clear how international cooperation takes shape in practice, and how important personal encounters are for sustainable partnerships.
Why are you in Madagascar, and what are you doing there?
I am in Madagascar for three weeks as part of a collaboration with the University of Antananarivo. With a professor from the university, I am training MSc and PhD students in water supply monitoring and evaluation.
This isn’t just theory: we’re conducting interviews with water supply staff, those responsible for public water points and households. We’re also analysing water quality at various levels to gain as comprehensive a picture of the situation as possible.
This is my first visit to Madagascar. The partnership with the University of Antananarivo was established entirely remotely – which made it all the more important to meet in person after numerous online meetings and to deepen our collaboration.
What does a typical day look like for you?
There’s hardly a truly typical day here. Initially, the focus was primarily on the training at the University of Antananarivo. That meant getting up early to navigate the daily traffic jams by taxi, followed by long days of theoretical and practical input.
After the first few days of training we started applying the newly learnt methods in the university itself. The next step was fieldwork: data collection under real-world conditions, often involving long car journeys and intensive practical implementation.
During this phase it becomes clear what works well and what needs to be adapted. The alternation between planning, application and optimisation is a central component of the work on the ground.
What are the challenges? What are the lesser-known aspects of Madagascar?
A major challenge is getting around - distances that look manageable on the map can take a very long time to cover. We once spent 14 hours travelling 460 kilometres because of road conditions, countless potholes and obstacles on narrow lanes such as ox carts, lorries and herds of animals.
Power and water cuts are also part of everyday life. This requires forward planning – for example, by using rechargeable batteries for equipment such as incubators.
What many may not know: the population of Madagascar is very young, with a median age of 20. The people are exceptionally warm and open. The landscape is very diverse, characterised by terraced rice fields and a wide variety of fruits. Rice plays a central role in daily life – many people eat it three times a day.
What are the benefits of the stay – for you personally, for the HLS and for the partner university?
For me personally, the stay is a valuable experience: I am getting to know new people and their lived realities, expanding my network and deepening my specialist knowledge.
For the collaboration between the HLS and the Université d’Antananarivo, the exchange creates an important foundation for existing and future projects. Jointly supervised BSc and MSc theses can be developed, generating data and application-oriented results. These in turn can be incorporated into scientific publications, contribute to the development of new training materials and be disseminated via the networks of the FHNW and international partners.
Furthermore, the insights gained also have a direct benefit on the ground: improved data on drinking water quality and the effectiveness of chlorination measures help utility companies, local authorities and NGO partners to improve water supply sustainably.
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Contact
Irina Hauri
