Today ends a 3-day WAEMU expert meeting on financing sustainable and resilient agriculture. The meeting, held in Lomé, was initiated by the Banque Ouest Africaine de Développement (BOAD) and the Green Climate Fund. The two organizations teamed up to help WAEMU countries in the transition process to resilient agriculture and low greenhouse gas emissions. 

Participants gathered at the meeting covered technological and financial mechanisms that foster the development of agriculture in the countries concerned, with the goal of yielding a financing project in the WAEMU States. 

“We practice rain-fed agriculture, and if it doesn't rain, we don't sow, and don't harvest. Resilient agriculture leverages irrigation, which means that even without rain, we can get water that crops need so they keep producing just like the normal season,” said Yao Merry, head of the division of climate change at the Directorate of Environment, as part of this work.

After the meeting, the Green Climate Fund should issue a concept note that will help improve agricultural financing in the WAEMU. 

The Green Climate Fund and the BOAD have been partners for years and in 2019, the Fund approved a €100 million financing for the Bank to support the renewable energy sector in the Union. 

Ayi Renaud Dossavi

Togo plans to dedicate CFA13 billion to food security this year. The amount is fixed in the 2023 finance bill and represents 25% of the total budget allocated to the ministry of agriculture in 2023.

“We must feed ourselves, live from our agricultural activities, and provide for ourselves and our families to better invest in the economic development of the country,” said President Gnassingbe last Saturday at the end of the Agricultural Producers Forum (FoPAT).

Besides boosting local production, the CFA13 billion will also enable Togo’s Food Security Agency to sustain its grain purchase and storage policy. 

The government of Togo, let’s recall, is committed to the structural transformation of agriculture and the development of this sector. To this end, it launched several projects and programs.

Esaïe Edoh

The Regional Emergency Solar Power Intervention Project (RESPITE) is online. The project, which aims to boost access to electricity in Togo, Sierra Leone, Chad, and Liberia, kicked off last Tuesday in Freetown, Sierra Leone. 

"Today, our countries are taking a bold step in the right direction. RESPITE is the beginning of a revolution in energy supply and access," said Julius Maada Bio, President of Sierra Leone, who presided over the official signing of the financing agreements, in the presence of official delegations from Togo, Liberia, Chad, and the West Africa Power Pool (WAPP).

On Jan 30, the day before the launch, the RESPITE’s regional technical committee held a roundtable on “Achieving universal access to energy for economic transformation”. 

The RESPITE is financed by the World Bank ($311 million). Supporting the WAPP, the project involves the installation and operation of around 106MW of solar PV power with batteries and storage systems and 41MW expansion of hydropower capacity in the four participating countries.

Ayi Renaud Dossavi

Over the next three years, “Moi Jeu Tri” a Togolese association specializing in waste transformation, will boost its operations with a grant of €1.125 million. It secured the facility from the French Development Agency (AFD) and the related agreement was signed on January 31, 2023, in Lomé, in the presence of several Togolese diplomats and representatives from international organizations. 

The deal, according to Edem d'Almeida, Managing Director of Africa Global Recycling (AGR) and founding president of Moi Jeu Tri, “marks an important step in a process that began nearly a year ago.” This was shortly after the AFD launched FISONG, a call for projects themed “Social and inclusive entrepreneurship, vector of solutions for the prevention and management of waste.” 

"This very selective process led to the selection of two projects in the world including ours," d’Almeida said.

The collaboration aligns with d’Almeida’s association’s ambitions, notably its plans to establish an end-of-life management channel for solar and electronic waste in Togo. This is a project with an estimated cost of €1.3 million. Besides, the new partnership joins existing initiatives to foster the sustainable and profitable management of solar and electronic waste in Togo.

In the long term, Moi Jeu Tri and the AFD hope to create 132 jobs and recover over 1,000 tons of waste, under their alliance.

Ayi Renaud Dossavi

The ECOWAS Bank for Investment and Development (EBID) recently secured a dual-currency line of credit from the African Development Bank (AfDB). The facility, comprising $50 million and €50 million, will finance trade within ECOWAS. 

The AfDB’s board approved the credit line on January 24, in Abidjan. An additional co-financing of $30 million will come through the Africa Growing Together Fund (AGTF) from the People’s Bank of China. 

Agriculture, infrastructure, and transport

On its website, AfDB wrote: “EBID will use the three-and-a-half-year facility to provide direct financing to local corporates. Part of the facility will also be channeled through select local banks for on-lending to key sectors such as agriculture, infrastructure, and transport. The ultimate beneficiaries will be Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs), local enterprises cooperatives, and farmers in the West Africa region.”

Based in Lomé, Togo, EBID is the financial arm of the ECOWAS. Its member States are Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Côte d'Ivoire, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Togo.

Ayi Renaud Dossavi

The government of Togo will allocate CFA21 billion to its Universal Health Insurance (UHI) project this year. The sum, set in the 2023 Finance Law, is 10% higher than that forecast (CFA19 billion) for the same project in 2022, and it represents 16% of the health ministry’s budget in 2023 (CFA127 billion). 

With the increased allocation, the UHI should be implemented faster. This is as the INAM, which is in charge of the project, gets ready to launch a new health insurance product that will cover informal actors who are not covered by traditional insurance products.

Togo, it should be noted, inked, in 2021, with the World Bank a CFA38.5 billion deal to provide quality healthcare to the Togolese people.

Esaïe Edoh

From now on, the chairman of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Togo (CCI-Togo) no longer has a salaried status. However, all professional expenses (trips) incurred by the chairman will be taken care of. This is one of the few reforms announced on Jan 30 by the Chamber’s special consular delegation. The reforms were presented to economic operators. 

As part of the new reforms disclosed by the CCI’s interim management team, the consular delegation will now have 75 elected members– 27 established at the regional level, and 48 at the national level. 

Also, the consular delegation is now required to present its annual report to the consular assembly. And the amount of its members’ contribution will be calculated based on their financial balance sheet filed with the OTR; this, according to Nathalie Bitho, head of the consular delegation, aims to “prevent unfairness in the payment of contribution by members.”

It is worth noting that the CCI’s interim management team was set up after the consular electoral process was halted, in September 2020, amidst an internal crisis.

Esaïe Edoh

Togo must strive to achieve food self-sufficiency to accelerate its economic development. Faure Gnassingbe, the Togolese president, voiced this opinion last Saturday, at Tsévié, as the second part of the Agricultural Producers Forum was closing.

We must feed ourselves, live from our agricultural activities, and provide for ourselves and our families to better invest in the economic development of the country, the leader said. 

According to him, efforts made so far by the government to this end are insufficient and must be increased for Togo to depend less on food imports. "The efforts we have been making for so many years have not yet allowed us to feed ourselves. We are forced to buy chicken and fish from outside, and often not of good quality. As we do not produce enough, we make do with these products that come from elsewhere, perhaps at low prices, but not always good for our health."

"When we think of tomorrow’s agriculture, what we think of is mechanization, irrigation, export, and we see bankers running after you (farmers) with financing offers. I am convinced that we will find ways to achieve this if we work together," President Gnassingbé added.

The Head of State and his collaborators, just like they did in Dapaong, met with various groups of the maritime region. The talks aimed to encourage farmers to produce more and foster inclusive management in the agricultural sector. They also covered some topics falling under the Togo 2025 Government Roadmap.

Esaïe Edoh