Togo First
WEZOU: Nearly a billion CFA spent so far to support 160,000 pregnant women
Launched in August 2021, WEZOU, a State program that supports pregnant women and newborns in Togo has already drawn over CFA950 million from the government. According to data recently published by the ministry responsible for universal access to healthcare, the program now covers 680 health centers across the country.
The CFA950 million it mobilized so far was used to enroll more than 160,000 women, support around 70,000 deliveries, and over different services.
WEZOU, Togolese authorities explained, aims to reduce maternal and neonatal mortality rates, in line with the ambition to improve social inclusion and modernize the State, in line with the government's roadmap. Lomé allocated CFA3 billion to the program for its first year of implementation.
Ayi Renaud Dossavi
Togolese authorities assess progress made on the African Roots Decade project
On May 9, 2022, the High Committee in charge of the African Roots and Diaspora Decade assessed major ongoing projects that fall under the Decade’s agenda. The meeting, chaired by the Togolese minister of foreign affairs, Robert Dussey, was held online.
In detail, the participants reviewed Morocco’s business forum project aimed at leveraging fintech to cut remittance costs, and Togo’s ministerial meeting project to monitor and assess the Johannesburg action scheme.
While progress has been made, according to Robert Dussey, the official recommended the establishment of a more inclusive framework for exchange with the African diaspora and Afro-descendants.
A Togolese initiative, the African Roots Decade’s goal is to make members of the African diaspora key contributors to Africa’s development. To date, 15 countries adhere to the initiative.
Esaïe Edoh
US organization IPA to help Togo fight poverty using AI
The Togolese Agency for Identification, ANID-TOGO, will partner with Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) to explore ways AI can help Togo better fight poverty. According to the Togolese Presidency, Annie Duflo, IPA’s executive director, met with President Faure Gnassingbé last Monday in Lomé to discuss the partnership.
"It was a great honor and pleasure to exchange with the President of the Republic. Our mission is to build a partnership to help the National Identification Agency (ANID) develop a social register and use data and evidence for decision-making," Duflo said at the end of the meeting.
Once sealed, the partnership will allow Lomé to leverage IPA’s experience to tackle poverty through innovative solutions.
IPA helps several countries, making their public policies more efficient and effective. In Togo, it should set up an integrated laboratory within the ANID, to train its staff.
The ANID, it should be noted, steers the e-ID Togo project. Backed by the World Bank, this is a government initiative that is aimed at providing all natural persons in Togo with a unique identification number.
Regarding projects aimed at reducing poverty in Togo, the Novissi program is one of the government’s major projects. It is supported by the US NGO GiveDirectly.
Ayi Renaud Dossavi
Togo records surpluses, again, in the 2021-2022 agricultural season
Like in the past years, Togo had an output surplus across several agricultural sub-sectors in the latest campaign. The ministry of agriculture, which disclosed the news, added that agricultural output increased by 3.56% overall.
In the cereal sector, there was a surplus of 179,000 t, including 159,000 t of corn. Roots and leguminous surpluses respectively stood at 751,700 t and 139,100 t. There was, however, a rice deficit of 88,000t over the period reviewed.
Togolese authorities explained that the surpluses, recorded despite the health crises and weather challenges, were due to the government’s efforts to boost production. Such efforts include subsidizing fertilizers sold at CFA12,500 (50 kg bag), supplying farmers with certified seeds, and building rural roads.
For the coming season, the government plans to develop lands, promote mechanization, and better water use. It will also focus on developing animal rearing, funding farmers’ activities through the MIFA, and continuing to work on rural roads.
However, the 50-kg bag of fertilizer, subsidized by the government, will be sold at CFA18,000 in the 2022-2023 campaign.
Esaïe Edoh
Togo: Cotton farmers will spend a little more to get seed cotton during the 2022-2023 season
A kilogram of 1st-grade seed cotton will be sold to farmers at CFA300 in the 2022-2023 season, 13% more than in the last season (CFA265). As for 2nd-grade seed cotton, it will be sold at CFA280 /kg or 24% more than during the 2021-2022 season.
The updates were in an official note that the Nouvelle Société Cotonnière du Togo (NSCT) sent to regional directors of agricultural production on May 6, 2022.
The NSCT added how much fertilizers will cost farmers this season: NPKSB 12-20-18-5-1 fertilizer (295 francs per kilo), 46% N urea fertilizer (275 francs per kilo), conventional insecticides (3000 FCFA per hectare treatment dose), alternative products (4800 FCFA per hectare treatment dose), total herbicide (2200 FCFA per liter), pre-emergent herbicide (8820 FCFA per liter), post-emergent herbicide (5700 FCFA per liter), growth regulator (2200 FCFA per liter).
These prices are relatively the same as that of the 2021-2022 season.
Ayi Renaud Dossavi
WAEMU: CRRH’s net result up by 7.1% in 2021
Last year, the net result of the WAEMU Regional Mortgage Refinancing Company (CRRH) was 1.401 billion, up 7.1% compared to 2020 (CFA1.308 billion).
The figure was disclosed during the company’s 11th ordinary general assembly, held online last month. The assembly approved CRRH’s results for 2021 and allocated all its revenues to reserves and retained earnings.
Based on this performance, the regional fund plans to return to the lending market by 2023 and will seek CFA255.6 billion to refinance housing loans, for its member-States.
In this framework, the general assembly greenlit a borrowing plan covering the 2022-2023 period. It includes raising CFA179 billion by issuing bonds through public offerings and securing CFA76 billion worth of concessional resources from development partners.
In 2021, CFA8.5 billion were disbursed for six microfinance institutions, to refinance microfinance provisions, across the WAEMU.
Throughout the decade that ended last year, CRRH loaned CFA272.5 billion to support housing financing. The funds were made available to 41 shareholder banks that cover all eight WAEMU States.
Ayi Renaud Dossavi
COP15: President Gnassingbé, and others, in Abidjan to figure out ways to better tackle desertification
Faure Gnassingbé, the Togolese President, is currently in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, where he is attending the fifteenth session of the Conference of the Parties (COP15) of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD). The session began today, May 9th.
The leaders present will discuss the prospects of SDG 15 which aims to preserve and restore the earth's ecosystem. They will also explore ways to make populations affected by drought more resilient.
According to available information, Togo, like other participating countries, will, during the meeting, formulate concrete proposals that line up with national initiatives for the promotion of community forestry, forest landscape restoration, and increasing forest potential.
Togo, let’s emphasize, already has a strategy to fight drought and desertification. Also, in June 2021, it launched a national reforestation campaign to plant a billion trees by 2030.
Esaïe Edoh
Togo: A biometric identification campaign is ongoing in the Savanes region
The National Identification Agency of Togo (ANID) has been carrying out a sensitization campaign in the Savanes region for some days now. This campaign, according to well-informed sources, is part of the biometric identification project initiated by the government, in line with its 2020-2025 development roadmap.
Throughout the campaign, prefects, mayors, administration workers, actors of the civil society, NGOs, and traditional and religious chiefs will be meeting to discuss the activities carried out. They will also discuss how they help the campaign go smoothly.
Togo’s biometric identification project or e-ID Togo, let’s note, falls under the WURI regional initiative financed by the World Bank. It aims to increase Togolese citizens’ access to basic social services, universal health coverage, and yield a social citizen registry.
Togo: Prices of coffee and cocoa raised slightly
In Togo, a kilogram of robusta coffee and cocoa are being sold at CFA830 and CFA930, respectively. The prices were set by the Coffee and Cocoa Sectors Coordinating Committee (CCFCC) for the period going from May 1 to 15, 2022.
They are respectively up by 1.8% and 1.6% compared to prices applied in the period from April 13 to April 30.
The revision, according to the CCFCC, was made based on global prices, taking July 2022 as the upper limit for the price forecast.
Cocoa and coffee are, respectively, Togo’s second and third agricultural exports.
Inclusive Finance: the FNFI has loaned more than CFA100 bln to 1.7 mln people since its creation
In its eight years of activity, the National Fund for Inclusive Finance (FNFI) of Togo has loaned over CFA100 billion to people who cannot get access to traditional financing services. The figure, updated on March 31, 2022, was disclosed a few days ago by Mazamesso Assih, the minister in charge of financial inclusion and the informal sector.
The money was shared between more than 1.7 million people, through 14 products. While the repayment rate remains high, 94.48%, Mazamesso Assih said there is still room for improvement.
To date, the FNFI has 338 service points all over the country and partners with 22 financial service providers.
255,000 more beneficiaries by 2025
Due to business activities growing rapidly and the need to better monitor provided loans, the government announced some weeks ago that it would revise the FNFI’s attributes and expand fund provision under the mechanism.
With new measures introduced, the fund is now set to reach 255,000 more beneficiaries by 2025.
Digitalization and incentives
To achieve this, the government will close the gap between the fund and the people targeted, as well as improve the quality of services provided.
Digitalization and more incentives are some of the tools the ministry of financial inclusion plans to leverage within the next five years, in this framework.
A facilitation mechanism between banks and decentralized financial services should also emerge, to better meet the growing demand for microfinance services.
Octave Bruce