ALBATROSS consortium partners are meeting on 2-4 September 2025 in Tamatave, Madagascar, co-hosted by Bondy, CERED, Oxfam South Africa and UNESCO together with key personalities from different universities and entities. Around 50 people from 18 project partners —10 EU partners from 8 countries and 8 Africa partners from 5 countries— that comprise the ALBATROSS consortium, joined together to share their learnings and progress with a clear objective to achieve all the objectives set at the core of the ALBATROSS project.

The meeting was opened by Mahefasoa Randrianalijaona (CERED – Development Centre for Economic Studies and Research), Tahiana Ramananantoandro (Bôndy International), Colonel Faly (Antana BNGRC The National Office for Risk and Disaster Management), Richard Boda (University of Tamatave) and Christian Mavinta (ISSEDD). They all took the opportunity to welcome everyone and remark the importance of Albatross project, a productive and inspiring project, which is essential for building local capacity and successfully advancing Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) in the country.

After that, the overview of project progress was offered by Laura S. Leo and Silvana Di Sabatino, project Coordinators from UNIBO, who remarked the importance of going on working together in order to impove scientific knowledge and concrete actions on the ground.

Then, the day combined plenary sessions about the WorkPackages progress and update with parallel sessions where partners met together to share their knowledge and discuss among them.

The day also featured an invited talk with Luc Yannick Andréa, General Directorate of Meteorology, Ministry of Transport and Meteorology, Madagascar

The first day was marked by positivity and productivity, with a rich exchange of valuable ideas. Engaging discussions and thoughtful questions helped keep the project’s focus, underscoring the importance of ensuring its outputs are both accessible and beneficial to local communities.