The PeA Madatlas program is the winner of the first edition of the “Africa – France Academic Partnerships” program. It is supported by the University of Fianarantsoa and the Gustave Eiffel University, the University of Bordeaux Montaigne and the IRD and aims to structure a professional training course provided from the bachelor’s degree to the doctorate, focused on digital cartography, geomatics and sustainable development in Madagascar. He presented on March 19 and 20, 2026 at the Gustave Eiffel University, a restitution of the activities carried out since 2021, and prospects for continuity and enrichment of this partnership.
The sessions, in plenary or workshop, brought together around 80 participants in person, French and Malagasy, mainly from partner establishments, with the participation of professional cartographers (openstreetmap community, IGNFI, Resallience…), the Malagasy diaspora, the Agency Française pour le Développement (AFD), other PeA programs, and the ANR. The first day was devoted to academic partnerships between Northern and Southern countries, the internationalization of training, the integration of gender issues, and incubation. The second focused on the professionalization of training, scientific innovation and partnerships with the socio-economic world.
The sessions highlighted the dynamism and abundance of Madatlas’ productions, in line with the objectives of sustainable development. The fight against VSS, the development of student entrepreneurship, training in expertise and cartographic diagnosis through school camps, co-diploma, student mobility, the creation of observatories and spatial data infrastructures with a view to action research, the dissemination of research with a scientific cartography journal, were particularly highlighted. Finally, a 180” my thesis competition bringing together 17 doctoral students gave a lively overview of the mapping research supported by Madatlas, ranging from the design of innovative geomatics tools applied to resource management and risks, to sensitive mapping, a method used by the winner, Clémence Malavergne, with her thesis “Walking for the market” (geography, Gustave Eiffel University), dedicated to women traders in Fianarantsoa.
