As promised by President Faure Gnassingbé, the government has adopted Feb. 1, 2018, a decree stating regulatory provisions regarding the awarding of part of public procurements to youth and women. “Each contracting authority is to set aside at least 20% of procurements under its plan for public procurements to the Togolese youth (18 to 40 years old) and entrepreneur-women (no age limit) operating in the country,” reads the decree.
The measures, which might appears as positive discrimination, is driven by a need to favor youth and women, who are the most affected by unemployment and poverty in the society.
Another detail of interest to these groups of the society is the possibility to increase the fixed proportion, based on assessment and request of the ministry of economy and finances.
The decree highlights that youth and women, engaged in an enterprise, will benefit from simplified procedures for quotation request and restricted tenders with advertisement.
In the long run, the measure should produce “efficient answers to unemployment and improve living standards of youth and women”, the decree concludes.

Personal initiative training pays about three times more than standard business training programs. This is the result of an experiment conducted by World Bank on some micro businesses in Lomé, Togo.
“The personal initiative training increased firm profits in Togo by 30%…” while those who received traditional training (accounting, marketing, and human resources management mainly) increase their profits by 11%.
According to the Bretton Woods institution, this is a generalized trend in developing countries. “ Few evaluations of traditional business training programs offered to existing firms have found sustained impacts on business profits, particularly for women”, World bank comments.
So, the trend is more pronounced with women. Indeed, the experiment reveals that the profits of women who received psychology-based training (initiatives taking, anticipation, and proactive behavior) have increased by 40%. At the same time, women who received traditional training recorded a moderate 5% increase.
This substantial increase has helped the personal initiative trainees to pay the cost of their training (about $750 per trainees) within a year, World Bank explains.
These results show the impact of psychology on success in entrepreneurship, as well as a personal development training, focused on entrepreneurship. Indeed, in Togo, and in the sub-region, success in entrepreneurship is still perceived as the privilege of certain individuals struck by luck or having some kind of natural predispositions.

Fiacre E. Kakpo

Togo records encouraging progress in reduction of deforestation and forest degradation, according to the the World Bank.
Actually, the messaging app WhatsApp has become an important asset to involve women in activities, trainings and decision-taking process related to the fight against deforestation and climate change.

“CF-REDD+ (women consortium for the deforestation and forest degradation reduction plan) will use the mobile app WhatsApp to organize weekly information and training meetings on forest preservation in Togo. Many are participating: to date, about 64% of consortium members attend meetings remotely... via WhatsApp messaging,” says the Bretton Woods institution.

The latter reports the statement of a participant, Kokoe Mawulolo Logosu-Teko, who said: “Being a member of the WhatsApp group helped me to better understand climate change and also the need for the REDD+ process in Togo. I can also share what I learned with others at meetings and within my association”.
CF-REDD+ is a national coordination platform, created in 2016 by Brigitte Acakpo-Addra. It gathers members of women organizations involved in forest resources management.

Fiacre E. Kakpo

Togolese Prime Minister, Komi Selom Klassou, officially launched, on Jan. 30, Cellule Climat des Affaires (CCA)’s activities and proceeded to the opening of a workshop to validate the action plan for business climate’s improvement in Togo.
These activities include making proposals on actions/reforms to improve national indicators and keep improving business climate; putting in place practical measures for information exchange between responsible structures for reforms’ implementation and establishing a timetable to achieve and monitor the actions.
According to the official, CCA will pursue important reforms undertaken in recent years, including the reduction of costs needed to start a business and also that of related deadline for the process, facilitation of access to building permits and ownership transfer, reduction of electricity connection time, reduction of corporate income tax and payroll tax, as well as private-public partnership’s strengthening.

Waliyullah Tajudeen

A new pricing has been elaborated for foundation and soil studies. This has been revealed by a memorandum of the laboratoire national du bâtiment et des travaux publics (LNBTP), the public autonomous institution which controls the quality of infrastructures under construction in Togo.

According to the institution, the new pricing plan is aimed at “encouraging citizens to build on good soils, soils that meet current security standards”.

Its goal is to facilitate the installation of economic operators and local households. The new pricing plan is one of the vast reforms adopted by Togo’s government to improve and hasten the procedures to obtain building permits.

One of the most important reduction is the fees for the study of soils for the construction of a 1,300 m2 warehouse. Indeed, the fee was CFA900,000 but now it is CFA350,000 which represents a 60% reduction.

Furthermore, for soil studies for the construction of a ground floor type of household whose area is below 300 m2, the fee is CFA250,000. For this type of household whose area is comprised between 300 m2 and 600 m2, it is CFA300,000.

The fee for one or two-storey, it is set to CFA500,000. “Buildings of more than two-storeys and industrial type building will be studied on a case-by-case basis according to the norm NF P 94-500” which allows to set the claims among other things, the institutions explained.

Togo wants to become an economic hub in the sub-region. In that regard, government will put in place, as of this quarter, many reforms which are aimed at accelerating development of this African country whose private sector faces many challenges, and proceed to the automation of the issuance of urban planning deeds mainly. So, town hall and prefecture will be able to deliver first-class permits.

Fiacre E. Kakpo

Togolese Prime Minister, Komi Sélom Klassou, told a press conference at the business formalities center about new reforms undertaken by the government to facilitate business creation and improve business climate in the country.

Facing journalists, and major ministers, the official discussed mainly some major measures initiated by the government. Amongst these: minimum capital’s liberalization for LLCs, the President’s commitment to guarantee at least 20% of public procurement to young people with enhanced support and especially reforms related to the single window of the business formalities center.

“In addition to this promise about the 20% guarantee, the leader has also said that young people will benefit from streamlined procedures,” the Prime Minister emphasized. “It’s profound…really, it is an array of measures to accompany young people to be very efficient,” he added.

According to authorities interviewed by Togo First, launching a business has never been as easy as now. It is possible to create a business in less than 24 hours for CFA31,400. Also, it is now permissible to freely define the starting social capital for LLCs.

“Today, each young entrepreneur who desires to create its own business can freely set minimum capital to CFA25,000, CFA20,000 or any amount he wishes the starting social capital and even define social shares,” explained Sandra Johnson, head of Business Climate Unit (CCA).

Stephane Afidegnon, a young Togolese entrepreneur who has been operating in the informal sector for three years, assures that he formalized his business thanks to the incentives, especially to the procedure’s cost and delay. “What's good is that when we come for the first time, the following day, we get the business creation card. The cost is also very good,” he said.

In 2017, Togo registered 8199 new businesses, according to CFE’s data. This is a modest performance, attributable to political shocks that marked the second half of last year. But this year, authorities expect a rebound spurred by new reforms underway.

Allianz risks barometer 2018 has been released and, for the first time, it assesses in order of importance, the risks that Togo-based companies fear for the ongoing year.

According to the document, companies of any sector or size across the world, mainly fear business disruptions, cyber incidents, and natural disasters in 2018.

In Togo, the top 3 risks perceived are fire and explosions (54%), political risks (50%, war and social conflicts for instance) and business disruptions, including risks of logistics chain break (39%). Natural disasters risk ranked 3rd in the world, is only 4th in Togo (31%).

According to companies probed in Togo, the other risks include, in descending order, legislative and regulatory developments (15%); cyber incidents (15%); theft, fraud, corruption (15%); climate change or increased volatility of weather conditions (12%); reputational or brand image damage (12%) and market developments (12%).

Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty (AGCS) is in charge of corporate and specialized insurance activities on behalf of Allianz group.

In the 2018 edition of its yearly report, the African Economic Outlook, African Development Bank (AfDB) said Togo’s GDP should grow in the next two years.

According to the report, the economy should grow by 5% this year, a forecast that is below World Bank’s (5.3%) but exceeds last year’s growth (4.5%). The growth should be driven by abundant rains paired with appeasement of political tensions.

In 2019, Togolese economy should perform better, driven by reforms initiated by government to boost private investments, at the expense of public spending which puts pressure on the country’s debt. Growth rate could exceed 5.3%.

In 2018-2019, the tertiary sector which contributed in 2015 to more than 47% of GDP, according to INSEED, “should benefit from the port of Lomé’s capacity, increased subsequent to the installation of modern transshipment equipment”, AfDB said.

Agriculture, it should be noted, remains the driver of Togolese economy. It has contributed 1.7% to growth in 2017 and should be boosted by government’s new agricultural policy, focused on developing and promoting agropoles.

Fiacre E. Kakpo