Togo will get $5.39 million from the AfDB to boost its food sovereignty and help its small farmers be more resilient as the war in Ukraine continues. The grant was recently approved by the regional lender. 

"The sharp rise in fertilizer prices and the difficulty for small and vulnerable producers to obtain fertilizer are likely to cause a drop in the rate of fertilizer use and affect future agricultural production," said Wilfrid Abiola, AfDB Country Manager in Togo.

With this money, 25,500 farmers, 40% of them being women, should get 500 tons of certified climate-resilient seeds and 7,700 tons of fertilizers, according to the Abidjan-based bank.

Besides, part of the funds will be used to valorize 25,500 ha of land. Also, farmers will frequently get information to cope with climate change issues, and institutions–such as the Agricultural Inputs Management and Supply Central, the Technical Support and Advice Institute, the National Agency for Food Security, and the Agricultural Financing Incentive Mechanism (MIFA)–which contribute significantly to agriculture in Togo will benefit from capacity-building missions. 

Subsequently, Togo hopes to produce 37,00 tons more of grains over the current and coming agricultural seasons. The resulting output should guarantee food and nutritional security for nearly 120,000 people according to the AfDB’s forecasts. 

“The budget support just approved by our Board of Directors is to assist the government in its efforts to support vulnerable small-scale producers,” Abiola said.

The grant is part of AfDB’s $1.5 billion African Emergency Food Production Facility launched on May 20, 2022. This facility aims to provide 20 million African smallholder farmers with certified seeds (wheat, rice, corn, soybean). It should enable these farmers to produce 38 million tons of food in the next two years. 

Besides Togo, other beneficiaries include Chad, South Sudan, Niger, Burundi, Senegal, and Madagascar.

Togo-based incubator Energy Generation is a finalist of the Ashden Awards 2022, a Britsh contest that promotes access to renewables. The incubator which trains young entrepreneurs and technicians runs in the Energy Access Skills category. 

Other finalists include Zimbabwe’s Zonful Energy which trains rural youths in the solar energy sector, Community Energy Malawi which creates training opportunities for locals, and Uganda’s EnergGrow, an institution that finances and teaches micro-enterprises to use energy productively.

Chaired by Prince Charles, Ashden is a British NGO that wants to accelerate climate innovation, by helping businesses, charity organizations, and governments have a greater impact in the UK and developing nations. 

The winners of the Ashden Awards 2022 will be known next fall. The winner in the Energy Access Skills will receive £25,000.

In 2020, Togo’s renewable energy and rural electrification agency (AT2ER) received an award in the Systemic innovation for energy access category.

Ayi Renaud Dossavi

On July 14, 2022, the Togolese Minister of Maritime Economy, Edem Tengue, met with the Director General of Niger’s Council of Public Transport Users (CNUT), Tchima Moustapha. The latter was in Lomé on a work trip.

During the meeting, the two officials reviewed trade relations between their countries and good transit to Niger, via the dry port of the Adétikopé Industrial Platform (PIA). This port has been operational since the beginning of the year and receives containers that go to neighboring landlocked countries. 

Covering 20 hectares, the PIA’s dry port can house up to 12,500 containers. Its objectives include accelerating transit and centralizing container-related formalities at the PIA’s single window. Another objective that the government has with the infrastructure is to reinforce its position as a supplier of Sahel countries and to become a logistics hub in the region.

The Tunisian-African Business Council (TABC), which supports Tunisian investments and businesses in Africa, will dispatch a delegation to Togo from September 11 to 15, this year.  The news, disclosed by the organization on July 12, was relayed by several Tunisian media.

The delegation will be carrying out an economic mission, the first of its kind. This mission will be organized in partnership with the Togolese Ministry of Investment Promotion, the Agency for the Promotion of Investment and the Free Trade Zone, and the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Togo.

It will assess Togo’s strengths for investment and explore the opportunities the West African country has to offer.

According to the TABC, Togo is “a dynamic destination” with many assets and great opportunities for investors; especially because of “its advantageous geostrategic position in West Africa”. Togo, indeed, connects the coast to many of its landlocked neighbors, such as Burkina Faso, Niger, and Mali. Its position on the Abidjan-Lagos axis also facilitates exchange with other coastal countries (Benin, Nigeria, Ghana, and Côte d'Ivoire).

"Togo also has a growth rate of 5.3%, a port, and a world-class airport–which make the country a reference regional hub, political stability and leads West Africa’s banking sector, in terms of hosted headquarters,” the Tunisian council noted.

Ayi Renaud Dossavi

Seven civilians were killed and two injured on the night of July 9 to 10, 2022, in Margba, a village located in the Tône prefecture, northern Togo. Subsequently, the Togolese army announced it would investigate the incident.

The investigation revealed that it was the army that accidentally shot the civilians, mostly teenagers, mistaking them for terrorists. “An aircraft on night patrol hit a group of people who were thought to be a column of jihadists on the move,” reads a statement from the army. 

“The Togolese army deeply regrets this tragedy and again extends its sincere condolences to the grieving families, and wishes those injured a speedy recovery,” the note adds, while stressing that “necessary measures will be taken to avoid such drama in the future”.

A government delegation visits grieving families

Yesterday, July 14, a delegation from the government visited the grieving families to also extend their condolences and wish a quick recovery for the two who were injured.

Brigadier General Dada Maganawé, Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces of Togo, in an official note addressing the incident, has reiterated the commitment of his men to serve and protect the people and country, while emphasizing the need to better cooperate with local populations to better protect them. 

Gozem is adding electric motorcycles to its fleet in Togo. Raphaël Dana, the co-founder of the startup, disclosed this on his LinkedIn profile. 

The project, currently in its pilot phase, should extend to the other markets where the firm operates. 

Let’s note that not long ago, Gozem teamed up with IFC to provide financial support to 6,000 of its bike drivers. It also recently partnered with TotalEnergies to allow its Champions to pay digitally at the former’s gas station. 

The recent developments also occur in a context where the government has introduced some tax incentives to facilitate the import and sale of electric vehicles in Togo.

Ayi Renaud Dossavi

On the night of July 7 to 8, two trucks were seized in Sokodé as they were exporting food from the country, without the necessary authorization.

The trucks carried 25 tons of food: 251 100kg-bags of gari and tapioca. The goods will be sent to the ministry of local consumption for further procedures,” said Fioklou-Toulan Erick, Regional Manager of the Central Customs

This seizure, the third this year, takes place a few months after a ministerial decree forbade the export of consumer products without authorization from the ministry of trade. 

Esaïe Edoh

In 2019, Togo fully started its decentralization, holding municipal polls for the first time. In this article, Togo First looks at how the country’s territorial communities financed themselves and how they spent their budget since that year.

At the dawn of the decentralization era in Togo, in 2019, a record was set by the nation’s territorial communities. They mobilized CFA21.4 billion in their resources, mainly from taxes, duties, and other fees instituted by or for local authorities.  In detail, these included part of all of the patent, registration and stamp duties, housing tax, land tax, single professional tax (TPU), tax on gambling, quarrying and mining royalties, tax of fuel sold at the pump (in gas stations), tax on public road congestion, tax on advertising, etc. 

In 2020 and 2021, territorial communities mobilized less own resources: about CFA14.3 billion and CFA16.4 billion respectively. They were pulled down by the pandemic but later grew as Covid restrictions started being lifted in the second half of 2021. 

The FACT, a key contributor

It should be noted that Togo’s new territorial communities financed most of their first budget on their own (via the tax regulatory authority or OTR). It wasn’t until 2020 that they received “substantial” support from the government, through the Territorial Communities Support Fund (FACT). 

That year, the FACT provided territorial communities with more than CFA2.6 billion; this breaks down into CFA2 billion for investment credit and CFA634.6 million for operational expenses. In 2021, the Fund tripled its financial support to the communities, with a package of CFA6.25 billion. Over the period, funds provided to cover operational expenses surged by 97%, from CFA634.6 million to CFA1.2 billion. 

According to the government, the money helped communities clear compulsory expenses such as arrears, compensation of municipal councilors, and rents.

Regarding investment spending, the FACT raised the bar from CFA2 billion in 2020 to CFA5 billion in 2021. It went even farther this year, providing CFA6.2 billion to communities for the past semester. The figure was disclosed last Friday, by the minister of decentralization, Payadowa Boukpessi.

While the FACT is far ahead of financial and technical partners (FTPs) when it comes to financing local communities’ budgets (ed. Note: the latter spent CFA460 million over the three years reviewed), the FTPs’ off-budget contribution is significant. Germany, for example, deployed a massive program to support decentralization and local governance (ProDeGoL).

How were the mobilized resources used?

Over the past three years, the new communities used most of the funds they secured to acquire goods and services, reinforce their staff, and partly on investments. 

In 2021, for example, 75% or CFA18.8 billion of their total spending (CFA23.9 billion) went to operational expenses. Out of this amount,  10.8 billion was used to purchase goods and services, and 6.5 billion covered staff expenses. Meanwhile, salary and related expenses soared by more than 70% since 2019. 

In terms of investments, the communities spent 4.8 billion in 2019, 2.9 billion in 2020, and 5 billion last year. 

Fiacre E. Kakpo