After 66 years of failed centralized development policies dependent on international aid, the Fonena association has officially established itself in the Analamanga region. Its objective is to radically shift course by placing the fokonolona at the heart of Madagascar's decisions and future.
Six decades of political experimentation, centralized state plans, and international aid have failed to break Madagascar's poverty cycle. Faced with the failure of so-called "classical" models that confined Malagasy citizens to passive beneficiary roles, a wind of change is blowing from the capital. Fonena has officially announced its establishment in Analamanga through a press conference. Its ambition: to operate a radical paradigm shift by placing the fokonolona (traditional community assembly) at the nerve center of the country's development.
For Fonena, the message is clear: "Ny fokonolona no vahaolana" (the community is the solution). Development can no longer be a top-down directive dictated by leaders or donors; it must be endogenous, conceived and controlled from the grassroots.
Fonena's societal project presents a lucid critique of the island's economic history. From industrial white elephants of the Second Republic to hasty Malagachization of education, past policies shared the same blind spot: the absence of citizens as political subjects. "Project logic, with its short cycles and donor relationships, is incompatible with territorial logic, which demands time and continuity," the association states. "When the project ends, development ends with it."
To lift the fokonolona from obscurity and transcend purely formal decentralization in current legislation, Fonena relies on six immutable founding principles: effective popular sovereignty, ascending subsidiarity, dignity as prerequisite, co-responsibility, proof before promise, integrity and transparency.
Far from being mere utopian manifesto, Fonena's model has concrete achievements in Toliara, proving the effectiveness of citizen mobilization and endogenous resources. These include rehabilitation of 10 classrooms at EPP Mahavatse I, distribution of 600 school kits and support in 32 public schools, installation of potable water pumps and community solar kits to secure living spaces, and organized citizen response and mutual aid during cyclones Honde and Jude in February-March 2025, preceding official institutional intervention.
By establishing itself in Analamanga, Fonena aims to structure a vast citizen network, strengthen local deliberative management skills, and open genuine dialogue spaces with media, civil society, and state institutions. Ultimately, the movement aspires to a true "institutional reversal" at the national level, even proposing constitutional recognition of the fokonolona as a sovereign legal entity and creation of a National Fokonolona Chamber.