Influence of funding fads and donor interests on international aid for conservation in Madagascar

Tens of billions of dollars in official development assistance have been spent over the past three decades to address the increasingly rapid loss of biodiversity globally. Despite this expenditure, detailed knowledge of who has provided these funds and who has used them, for what purpose, where, why, and with what consequences remains limited. To address this gap, we used a mixed-methods approach to map and analyze international aid for biodiversity conservation in Madagascar, a high-priority country for conservation. We combined collation and analysis of publicly available funding data with semistructured interviews with a range of conservation actors in Madagascar. Overall, biodiversity aid to the country declined from 1990 to 2018 and was punctuated by sharp declines during times of political unrest. Funding flows were marked by periods with distinctive emphases, from institutional development to protected areas, to creating market-based incentives for conservation. These patterns reflected key donor interests and resonated with the views and perceptions of conservation practitioners on the ground. Conservation professionals highlighted how administrative shortsightedness and imbalances in the power relations shaping conservation aid allocation have led to an increasing projectification of the conservation sector and weakening of state capacity. Our findings show that by studying how funding for biodiversity changes within countries over time, one can reveal the interests and power dynamics among donors, governments, and nongovernmental organizations that influence funding decisions and conservation efforts. The evidence and insights presented here can inform future biodiversity funding decision-making in Madagascar and elsewhere and have particular relevance given major funding commitments under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.