The project has strengthened urban resilience in Antananarivo through targeted interventions in urban planning and disaster risk management. The main beneficiaries are the 650,000 poorest and most flood-prone inhabitants of Antananarivo living in high-risk areas. The outcome has enhanced urban living conditions and increased flood resilience in these areas.

Apart from flood mitigation, the NbS implemented in the project offer additional benefits such as:

• Ecosystem conservation: The solutions aided in restoring and rehabilitating degraded ecosystems. Conservation of ecosystems enhances disaster resilience and promotes sustainable tourism, fisheries, and overall ecosystem health.
• Community empowerment: The solutions involved engaging and empowering local communities. By raising awareness about the value of ecosystems, promoting sustainable practices, and involving communities in decision-making processes, the solutions fostered a sense of ownership and stewardship towards ecosystem conservation.
• Economic stability: By reducing the impact of disasters, the solutions safeguard critical infrastructure, protect livelihoods, and ensure business continuity. This fosters a stable economic environment, encourages investment, and supports sustainable economic growth.
• Health and well-being: the project has helped minimize the health impacts of disasters, including injuries, waterborne diseases, and mental health issues. Enhancing health systems and disaster preparedness contributes to a healthier and more resilient population.
• Knowledge and innovation: This project promoted knowledge sharing, innovation, and capacity building. The exchange of best practices, the development of new technologies, and the transfer of expertise enhanced local institutional capacity, fostered innovation, and supported the development of locally appropriate solutions for disaster management.

Implementation challenges and mitigation strategies:

• Engaging and coordinating with diverse stakeholders (government agencies, local communities, NGOs, private sector entities, and international organizations) was a complex task because each stakeholder group had different interests, priorities, and levels of involvement, making it crucial to ensure effective communication, collaboration, and consensus-building among them.
• Madagascar has a diverse range of urban typologies, including densely populated urban areas, informal settlements, and rural-urban fringe areas. Each typology presented a unique challenge and required tailored approaches for flood resilience. Understanding the specific characteristics, infrastructure systems, and socio-economic dynamics of different urban typologies was essential to develop appropriate strategies and interventions.
• Gaining a comprehensive understanding of the water system in Madagascar was crucial for flood resilience planning. This included studying the hydrological patterns, river networks, drainage systems, and flood-prone areas. However, data availability and its quality posed challenges, requiring efforts to collect accurate and up-to-date information. Additionally, local knowledge and indigenous practices related to water management also had to be considered to ensure the effectiveness and sustainability of interventions.
• Madagascar, like many such countries, faces resource constraints and limited capacity for implementing flood resilience projects. Funding limitations, technical expertise shortages, and inadequate institutional capacity may hinder the successful implementation of such interventions. Building local capacity through training programs, knowledge transfer, and institutional strengthening initiatives became crucial to ensure the sustainability of flood resilience efforts.
• It was also important to converge the proposed city strategy plan with various other ongoing WASH (WAter and Sanitation Hygiene) programs in the area to optimize funding and resources in the area. One of these included a Solid Waste Management program funded by the World Bank.
• Additionally, the project gave the project team a unique opportunity to optimize flood evacuation measures as a multifunctional social benefit intervention. This was particularly important due to the availability of open and usable spaces in the densely populated project area. For example, an open space which was designed as a relief and assembly point was also recommended for use as a soccer field during non-emergency situations. These can be seen in the images below.

Scalability:

• Climate change introduces an element of uncertainty in flood resilience planning. Madagascar is vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, including increased rainfall variability and sea-level rise. It was essential to incorporate climate change projections and scenarios into the project to anticipate future flood risks accurately. This involved considering adaptive strategies, such as infrastructure design and land-use planning to address the uncertainties associated with climate change.

The main conclusion from this pre-feasibility assessment and scaling lessons are that complex challenges would require formulating and designing simple solutions that are community-based, easy to implement and are replicable. Moreover, education and a suitable governance structure are essential for the design, implementation, and maintenance of successful low-technology intervention for flood risk reduction and disaster evacuation. Scaling lessons for similar interventions pivot around interventions being community-based, being embedded in appropriate governing structures, and supported by appropriate institutional and local capacities.