Climate, Oceans & Gender
Climate, Oceans & Gender
Exploring the Connections Between Climate, Oceans, Livelihoods, and Women’s Lives
EARLY STAGE - RESEARCH AND FEASIBILITY ASSESSMENT
In Southern Madagascar, climate pressures, the ocean, livelihoods, food security, and community life are closely connected.
IRC Africa Inc. and TERATANY are working toward a Marine Research Center in Southern Madagascar, operating by 2030 under local leadership, built around the connections between climate, oceans, livelihoods, and the lives of women and communities. The work is at an early stage: research planning, partnership development, and a professional feasibility assessment that will define how the Center is established.
The Center is not operating today and there is no finalized research program. We are starting with field reality, questions, learning, and professional planning.
The starting point
Why Are We Exploring This?
Southern Madagascar is a place where climate, livelihoods, communities, and the ocean intersect, creating important questions that deserve closer examination.
Androy faces drought, water and food scarcity, cyclones, and significant economic and social challenges. The Cyclone Valley Framework itself was developed from within this complex reality.
Ambovombe is located approximately 8 kilometers, or 5 miles, from the Indian Ocean and serves as a regional center for nearby coastal villages and communities. This setting raises important questions about the connections between the climate crisis, the ocean, livelihoods, food security, and the lives of women and families.
At this stage, we are not trying to determine the answers in advance.
We want to understand which questions truly matter, what is already known, where the most important knowledge gaps remain, and which questions can be studied in ways that are professionally rigorous and useful to people on the ground.
$10,000
Funding required for the professional feasibility assessment
The immediate next step
The $10,000 will fund the professional feasibility assessment. The assessment will not decide whether to establish the Marine Research Center. It will define how the Center should be developed professionally and responsibly, including its research priorities, partnerships, infrastructure, staffing, operating model, and phased implementation. Construction and operation will require separate funding, partnerships, and schedules.
Feasibility assessment
What Are We Assessing Now?
The first step is to define, professionally and in detail, how long-term research activity in Southern Madagascar should be built.
- What is already known and where the most important knowledge gaps remain.
- Which research questions are genuinely relevant to local communities and conditions on the ground.
- Which researchers, universities, and organizations could become appropriate research collaborators or institutional partners.
- Whether and how local research capacity can be developed gradually.
- What would be required in terms of research expertise, infrastructure, equipment, and funding to make this direction viable.
An important part of the feasibility assessment is ensuring that the research creates meaningful value for local communities, rather than only generating data or publications for outside researchers.
The assessment will help us
- 01Define research priorities and relevant questions
- 02Identify knowledge gaps and local needs
- 03Develop professional partnerships
- 04Determine infrastructure, equipment, and staffing requirements
- 05Design initial pilot research activities
- 06Build local research capacity
- 07Develop a sustainable operational and financial model
Who creates the knowledge
Building Local Research Capacity
One of the central questions is not only what can be studied, but who can participate in creating the knowledge.
The Cyclone Valley Framework treats research as a practical capability: identifying problems, asking questions, collecting information, analyzing data, and evaluating alternatives.
Once the Cyclone Valley Technology Campus is operating, qualified graduates will be able to work alongside researchers and other professionals, participate in field research, and develop experience in data collection, analysis, and communication.
They could gain practical experience in areas such as:
- field research
- data collection and analysis
- documentation
- community-engaged research
- localization and contextual adaptation
- research support
The goal is for research not only to generate information about Southern Madagascar. It should also have the potential to build local research capacity in Southern Madagascar.
Local communities and TERATANY should help define research priorities, not participate only as sources of information or data.
Professional dialogue so far
Research Visit, August 2026
In August 2026, a research visit to Ambovombe provided an early opportunity for professional dialogue around several of the questions we are beginning to explore.
In August 2026, Quinn Mitsuko Parker, a doctoral student at Stanford University whose research focuses on oceans and social-ecological systems, visited Ambovombe.
Her doctoral research examines small-scale fisheries and their connections to food security, gender equity, community wellbeing, and a changing climate.
During her visit, she met with the TERATANY team, visited Ny Trano Manga, gained direct exposure to the work on the ground, and participated in discussions about connections among the ocean, climate change, coastal livelihoods, gender equity, and violence against women.
The reference to Stanford University identifies Quinn’s academic affiliation only. Her visit does not represent a formal partnership, endorsement, sponsorship, funding relationship, or institutional involvement by Stanford University.
The path to 2030
From Feasibility to an Operating Marine Research Center
Oceans and the Blue Economy
Ambovombe's proximity to the ocean and its connection with nearby coastal communities raises another question for future exploration: could research, technology, and local knowledge eventually connect with opportunities in marine research and the Blue Economy?
The Blue Economy broadly refers to the sustainable use of ocean resources for economic growth, improved livelihoods, and jobs while preserving the health of ocean ecosystems.
As the feasibility work identifies local needs, relevant research questions, and appropriate collaborators, future exploration may examine connections among coastal communities, livelihoods, marine environments, climate change, local knowledge, and technology.
The Blue Economy is a direction for exploration only, not an existing IRC Africa Inc. or TERATANY program, and it is not part of the Center's approved 2030 goal. The purpose here is to learn where locally rooted research could create useful knowledge and meaningful opportunity.
Building the Research Infrastructure
The assessment defines what the Center needs in order to be built and operated professionally.
The assessment will establish:
- a genuine research need
- appropriate research collaborators and institutional partners
- the potential to develop local expertise
- clear value for local communities
- adequate resources
Pilot Research Activities follow. These initial activities test research questions, working methods, partnerships, local participation, and practical value at a small scale before anything larger is built.
What is learned there shapes the next stage: strengthening local research capacity and putting the supporting research infrastructure in place.
Research infrastructure does not mean only a building. It includes professional expertise, research methods, equipment, data systems and practices, digital tools, institutional relationships, and networks of researchers and local professionals.
- 01Professional feasibility assessment
- 02Pilot research activities
- 03Local research capacity building
- 04Research infrastructure
- 05Marine Research Center operating by 2030
This is a directional implementation path. Each phase requires funding, professional partners, local leadership, staffing, and detailed planning.
Our goal is to establish and operate a Marine Research Center in Southern Madagascar by 2030, focused on research relevant to local realities and developing professional research capacity under local leadership.
Research begins with questions
We Are Starting With Field Reality, Questions, and Feasibility.
We are starting with field reality, questions, existing knowledge, potential collaborators, and feasibility.
We are beginning by asking how rigorous, locally rooted research can create meaningful local value and help develop a new generation of research professionals in Androy.
Support at this stage can help fund feasibility work, professional consultation, local engagement, and the gradual development of local research capacity.