Handicrafts produced by Kanto, a cooperative in Ambinanibe, Fort Dauphin

QMM communities

At QIT Madagascar Minerals (QMM), partnership with the local community is important to us, and we aim to work in ways that deliver sustained value for both our business and our host communities.

We are finding better ways™ to be a better partner to our communities to create a sustainable and shared future.

Student from the Anosy region

QMM supports education in the Anosy region

To coincide with the start of the school year, QMM worked with local authorities to distribute 30,000 school kits across 38 elementary schools in 8 host municipalities and has begun distributing an additional 50,000 school kits to 21 municipalities in the wider District of Taolagnaro.

This large-scale initiative aims to increase school enrolment and reduce the financial burden on families by providing essential supplies at the beginning of the school year.

Community development contribution

As part of the fiscal agreement between the Government of Madagascar and Rio Tinto announced in August 2023, QMM committed to increase our community development contribution to $4 million per year over 25 years ($100 million in total), with half to be spent locally, and half in the region. As part of this, we’ll be investing $500,000 per year in reforestation activities. 

We're working hard to deliver meaningful, tangible benefits to the community that support the country's economic and social growth. 

QMM's contribution to economic and social development, in partnership with the Anosy region

QMM communities timeline

QMM is working with partners to roll out the 2024-2025 program.

30,000

+

local primary school students receiving supplies at the start of the school year

19,000

+

regional people provided with medical care

12,000

farmers supplied with seed and fertiliser

140

university scholarships granted in Fort Dauphin

1,600

students benefitted from tutoring classes

1,000

fishermen provided with fishing equipment and fish farming training

Supporting economic development for local entrepreneurs

Homizia had to leave school 2 years ago. Travelling long distances without proper orthopedic shoes had become too difficult and repairing them was too expensive.


When the Lombao program - created to support young entrepreneurs - was launched, she saw a chance to rebuild her path. Despite her mother’s initial doubts, Homizia chose embroidery: a manual, creative craft that suits her physical constraints. With only basic skills and a sewing machine borrowed from her mother, she threw herself into the work with determination.


With support from her family and MIARAKAP, the origanisation managing the Lombao project, Homizia is already preparing to expand her activity and explore new opportunities. For her, embroidery remains a craft with strong potential: with visitors, local hotels and families seeking unique pieces for special occasions, Fort-Dauphin offers a real market.

Homzia showing her white piece of cloth crafted creatively behind a sewing machine.
A mother holding her son while visiting a community clinic.

Providing free, accessible healthcare to communities

Healthy communities create lasting opportunities, and in Madagascar, free and accessible healthcare is making a difference where it’s needed most.  

Together with the Regional Public Health Directorate, QMM has implemented a community health project to provide free local healthcare through mobile clinics. 
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So far we’ve provided medical consultations and rapid diagnoses using test strips, in line with WHO recommendations, to more than 34,600 people. Medicines and medical consumables are also provided at a reduced cost, thanks to a subsidy from the Ministry of Public Health. 

Zafiny is a local mother whose 4-year-old son Zafy suffered from worsening painful stomach pains and dizziness, despite several consultations with healers.  

“When I heard that free treatment was on offer, I decided to come here in the hope of finding a solution for him,” Zafiny said.  

“I want to thank the doctor for his advice, and Rio Tinto QMM for making this treatment accessible and free of charge.”  

In addition to the mobile clinics, a stand-alone 12-day event in November 2024 provided free surgery, ophthalmology, cardiology, pediatric care, dental care and pregnancy care for more than 19,000 patients, thanks to a humanitarian mission of doctors, QMM and the Regional Public Health Department in Anosy. 

Community engagement 

We continue to identify ways to be more transparent and have greater engagement with local communities.

  1. Over 2024, QMM hosted more than 1,300 people, to explain how we operate, and to listen and respond to concerns.  
  2. QMM’s mobile community kiosks have reached over 4,330 people, providing community members with an opportunity to better understand QMM’s operations and get to know QMM’s people. Most importantly, these enable the community to ask questions and raise concerns directly to QMM. This includes ensuring the community is aware of how it can access QMM’s grievance process. 

QMM in the Community brings together all community focused initiatives under a single, visible and inclusive banner. Through football tournaments, One Student, One Tree reforestation program, solar kit distribution, fishing equipment support and rehabilitation of social infrastructure, these engagements brought together more than 15,000 community members, reinforcing trust, transparency and long-term relationships.

 

A group of people listening to an announcement

Listening and learning in communities

QMM’s mobile community kiosk has reached more than 4,330 people, providing community members with an opportunity to better understand QMM’s operations and get to know QMM’s people.

Community monitoring 

To focus on environmental issues that the community cares about, we are progressing a community monitoring program which includes community insights on weather, aquatic life, water and other environmental factors, to help our environmental assessments and foster a shared understanding of the ecosystem. We aim to begin a pilot in 2025. 

A group of children raising Rio Tinto hat

Welcoming the community to site

QMM continues to focus on direct engagement with its community through site visits, to better understand QMM’s activities and importantly, meet QMM’s people and ask questions. One such visit welcomed more than 153 visitors including employees’ families to join them and explore the site.

Cultural heritage

We work with the Malagasy people and anthropologists to survey and map sites and artifacts of cultural significance. Malagasy culture assigns special status to sites, including: 

  • Orimbato: Among the Antanosy, each person typically has 2 burial sites: the amonoky (vault), an isolated and sacred place where the body rests; and the samban'arivo, a stele decorated with zebu horns, erected by the roadside. 
  • Fisorogna: Places of sacrifice. 
  • Doany: Places of worship. 
  • Fagnariam-potsy: A symbolic place, usually a rice field, where the umbilical cord of newborns is buried, marking the child's belonging and connection to their family and cultural roots. 
  • Kibory (tombs): Sacred tombas places where ancestors eternally reside. 
  • Fisorogna (places of sacrifice): Sacred places used by each large family for offerings to the ancestors when events occur that require honouring, thanking, or seeking forgiveness. 
  • Tany Faly (sacred places): Places avoided by the community that could bring misfortune to those who enter due to their mystical and sacred power. 

 

QMM Kibory

Protecting ancestors

While preparing access to Vatovy, a new mining area close to the village of Mangaiky, QMM worked in collaboration with the village association "Miray" to protect a burial house, known as a Kibory. QMM employed local Mangaiky villagers, working with them to design and build a protection wall, defining this important place and protecting the area long-term.

Planting trees with the community

In February 2025, QMM joined more than 600 members of the community in Manatantely to plant 3,000 trees as part of the reforestation campaign, "The forest: a source of water and energy", initiated by the Ministry of Mines.
A member of community touching soil

Land agreements 

QMM was the first mining company in Madagascar to recognise the land rights of traditional land users. In 2016, we signed an agreement with the Government of Madagascar and the Mandena communities on which the mining concession sits, which set up a framework to provide a legal basis for the joint rights of each party within the mining concession. 

As part of its mining license agreement, QMM committed to a biodiversity conservation program that included the identification and management of protected areas and offset areas. These areas are designed to ensure gains in natural forest cover, preserve priority species and ensure that the loss of biodiversity in mining areas is compensated for. 

QMM works in partnership with organisations to manage these sites, for example with Asity, a Malagasy NGO, BirdLife International and Missouri Botanical Garden (MBG), who have a long history of conservation work in Madagascar. 

 

lady distributing toys to children in occasion of Christmas holiday

Bringing holiday cheer to little hearts

During 2024’s festive season, QMM had the pleasure of donating 400 toys to underprivileged children sponsored by the Sisters Daughters of Charity in Marillac, Fort Dauphin, in collaboration with the Anosy Region.

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