country, further exacerbating poverty-related challenges and threatening to undo much recent progress in the education sector. Madagascar is currently still working on its recovery. In the case of employment, it is not unemployment which is the problem in Madagascar, but rather, underemployment, that is, employment that does not earn workers a living wage. Many Malagasy citizens are trapped in low-wage activities, often in the informal sector and usually in the agricultural sector. There are high returns from primary and secondary education, from access to credit and capital assets, and from formal employment (including in the government sector) relative to informal employment. Poor citizens have virtually no access to credit or capital for fertiliser and other necessary inputs, and are often cut off from major infrastructure such as irrigation and roads. Most also lack crucial skills that would allow them to acquire jobs in other higher productivity and therefore more highly paid employment, or to raise the earnings of their self-employment. The stark reality is that most citizens lack the skills and training that would allow them to get these higher-paid jobs. Of equal importance, the economy is not growing fast enough or with the right sectoral balance to generate these jobs. In terms of FLFP, Madagascar has been recently promoting participation of women in the labour force. From the graph provided below, it can be observed that FLFP remained constant till the year 2206 and started rising. Post 2014, FLFP has been witnessing a decline and this is due to the political disarray in the country. The following tables provide information (in millions) about the distribution of the Malagasy population with respect to these parameters. The graph provided above depicts labour force participation by gender across different income groups. It is evident that male participation is exceeding that of women across all income groups and by a large margin in the middle income brackets. The current government, in consultation with Malagasy citizens and with the help of multilateral institutions and international donors, has put together an ambitious plan, the Madagascar Action Plan (MAP), which, complemented by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), is designed to put the economy on a solid path toward sustainable growth and poverty reduction. After years of political instability and economic stagnation, recent political and economic progress and the MAP process provide a basis for optimism about medium-term economic prospects for the Malagasy economy and people. A>