The new ambassadors of the USA and Brazil to Togo, respectively Elizabeth Fitzsimmons and Nei Futuro Bitencourt, presented their credentials to the Togolese Head of State, President Faure Gnassingbé, on Tuesday 26 April 2022.

On this occasion, they reviewed their bilateral cooperation with Lome and discussed the opportunities for political and economic cooperation.

Economy, good governance, and security: Top priorities for the U.S.

"The United States would like to support Togo's growth," said the American diplomat who believes that cooperation with Togo must be bolstered in the educational, economic, military, and political fields.

"We talked about the deep and solid partnerships between our two countries, I am sure we will strengthen the economic, cultural, educational, military, and political ties between our two countries. I hope that Togo will become a logistics hub and a digital hub in West Africa, with the support of the U.S.," she added.

Besides the economic and good governance fields, the Biden administration should strengthen its support in the security area, given security issues that currently plague the Sahel and the Gulf of Guinea. Togo, let’s emphasize, recently announced it was among countries in the region that will cooperate with the U.S. as part of a multi-year conflict prevention mission in Africa. 

Also, in April 2021, Washington pledged CFA24.7 billion to Togo, for various development projects.

Brazil-Togo: A cooperation focused on agriculture and military

For his part, Brazil’s ambassador stressed that between the two countries, there is a “very important cooperation in the agricultural sector, especially cotton.” Indeed, under the Cotton 4+ project, a research and development project, Brazil cooperates with Togo, and other countries including Chad, Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso. This project, which produced “major, concrete benefits in Togo,” is the spearhead of the Brazil-Togo cooperation in the agricultural sector.

Several research centers, new high-yield seeds, staff training, and rural expansionism, are some of these project’s benefits, said Nei Futuro Bitencourt.

The Brazilian official also voiced his country’s readiness to further strengthen its cooperation with Togo, not only in the agricultural research area but also in others such as education, military training, and security, especially in northern Togo, close to the Sahel.

“We have a new forage corridor project that will help mitigate tensions induced by transhumance in countries located in the Sahel and Northern Sahel regions,” the Southern American ambassador said. 

Regarding cooperation in the security sector,  Futuro Bitencourt referred to members of the Togolese army who are trained in Brazilian academies. “We want to push this further, and do more. There are many common issues that Brazil and Togo share.”

Brazil is one of the countries where Togo seeks private partners to partly finance its development. Before the pandemic, the West African country was even planning a Togo-Brazil Economic Forum.

After the U.S., which is the world’s biggest economy, Brazil is the second economic power in the Americas. However, worldwide, it is the 11th economic power. In 2017, trade between this country and Togo was valued at $97 million.

Ayi Renaud Dossavi

The construction of the new building of Lomé’s main market resumed on the morning of April 26. 

The works thus resume after a two-year hiatus spurred by  the Covid-19 pandemic. They were launched by Minister Zouréhatou Kassa-Traoré.

At the time of its launch, it was announced that the building would be a modern 5-level commercial building covering an area of 8656 m2. According to the Ministry of Public Works, the infrastructure should house about 1400 premises including stores, kiosks, stalls, wholesale spaces, a restaurant, and also a space for events. The cost of the work was estimated at 11.5 billion FCFA. 

The work is entrusted to the Ivorian Porteo BTP, for 16 months.

It should be recalled that in 2013, a fire had ravaged the Adawlato market, which was one of Togo’s biggest market then.

Ayi Renaud Dossavi

The Togo Aquaculture Development Project (PDAT) is beginning to show "satisfactory" results on Lake Nangbeto. The statement was made by Edem Kokou Tengue, Minister of Maritime Economy, Fisheries and Coastal Protection, after visiting the Lake last Friday.

Launched in 2020, the PDAT which aims to boost local tilapia production, provided Nangbétô’s fishermen with CFA380 million worth of equipment last August. The equipment included 60 floating cages of 400 m3, six (06) motorized dugouts, 63 tons of food, and 56,000 fingerlings.

30 t for the local market

The investment helped produce nearly 30 t of tilapia for the local market, within less than a year.

"In less than a year, the first results obtained are satisfactory," said Minister Kokou Tengue. Specifically, "to date, 28.737 tons of tilapia have been fished and will be put on the local market," he added.

A bigger investment on the way

Tengue added that the PDAT should pave the way for bigger investments aimed at developing aquaculture. "This project is a prelude to an investment of more than CFA45 billion in the aquaculture sector," the official noted.

At the same time, his department plans to link the project to Elavagnon’s Aquaculture Traning Institution, thus bolstering the know-how of future graduates, and creating new opportunities.

Read Also: Togo: President Gnassingbé inaugurates the aquaculture promotion center of Elavagnon

In Togo, local production contributes to only 30% of the national demand for tilapia. This means national fishing projects still have a long way to go in terms of growth.

In 2021, the West African country's fish demand was estimated at about 110,000 tons, while the sector employs nearly 22,000 people, and contributes only 4% to agricultural GDP and 1.3% to national GDP.

Ayi Renaud Dossavi

Togo’s Food Security Agency (ANSAT) launched, on April 25, the second phase of its nationwide campaign to purchase rice from producers. More than CFA140 million will be poured into the phase.

Already, the agency has bought 200 t of Paddy rice at CFA32 million in Kpendjal, and 100 t at CFA16 million in the Oti.

The campaign will help the agency boost its food stock, hence enabling it to cope in the event of market shortage. It is also good news for farmers who have been struggling to sell their produce, said ANSAT’s chief,  Ouro-Koura Agadazi.

In parallel to this purchase campaign, the ANSAT is buying all over the country other cereals from producer groups.

Esaïe Edoh

Next Friday, April 29, Togo will carry out its second issue on the WAMU money market this month, and this quarter as well. For this operation, the country will try to secure CFA30 billion. 

Lomé, according to the schedule published by the WAMU-securities agency, will issue recovery bonds (Odr) with a maturity period of 120 months, i.e. 10 years, and an interest rate of 5.9%.

A few days ago, on April 15, Togo successfully completed its first issue on the WAMU market this quarter. It secured CFA32 billion or CFA2 billion more than its target.

Adding the proceeds of its latest issue, Togo was able to mobilize CFA192 billion on the regional market so far into the year.

In a recent statement, the Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO) announced it has set up a fintech monitoring and knowledge office (BCSF). 

The office’s mission is to “promote the fintech sector by facilitating interaction between the Regulator and these actors (fintech, ed. note)”. It will also receive and process all requests for information or meeting with the regulator relative to fintech, to support the growth of fintech companies across the West African Economic and Monetary Union which the BCEO covers. Concretely, the BCSF aims to set up a framework for dialogue and interaction, which will accelerate the development of fintech and facilitate the implementation of necessary regulations. 

This is as more fintech businesses are competing to conquer the financial service market, mobile-based services especially.

Some of these businesses, which are now key players in the digital transformation and the promotion of financial inclusion, include Wave, CinetPay, PayDunya, or Togolese start-up Semoa. The first three offer money transfer services while the fourth actor is active in the digital banking sector with its WhatsApp Banking platform. 

In the first quarter of 2022, 42% of the funds secured by startups in West Africa were raised by fintech, according to Baobab Insights.  

Ayi Renaud Dossavi

By 2025, 255,000 more people will benefit from the government’s financial inclusion efforts in Togo. During the council of ministers held last Thursday, new measures relative to the access to the National Fund for Inclusive Finance (FNFI) were taken. The measures, specifically, are aimed at accelerating and ensuring the population’s inclusion as many still have no access to microfinance services. 

In detail, the authorities took three major measures. The first is a reduction in management fees for financial service providers operating in areas with low access to such services. The second measure is a reduction in interest rates for beneficiaries in the same geographical areas (i.e., a reduction of 2 points on the interest rate of all products put in place by the Fund), and finally, the third is an increase in the rate of compensation for unpaid loans for providers from 5% to 15%.

Though there are still many areas that are not covered by the FNFI, official statistics put at nearly 1.8 million the number of direct loans provided by this Fund over the past seven years. This volume corresponds to more than CFA101 billion.

In line with the new measures, the council of ministers has approved the recovery, by competent authorities, of debts owed to microfinance institutions that have been excluded from the FNFI’s partnership program in 2021.

Esaïe Edoh

The Togolese government plans to build five mother-child care centers in the country, one in each health region. The project was presented to the Council of Ministers on Thursday 21 April 2022 by the Minister Delegate in charge of universal access to healthcare. It should be carried out through a Public-Private Partnership, between the National Institute of Health Insurance (INAM) and “a private partner”. There is no further detail at the moment.

“This project will make available more pediatric resuscitation equipment, especially neonatal, and will thus help provide better care to mothers and their children and avoid deaths,” the government wrote in a statement. In this framework, Lomé is exploring the possibilities “to start construction imminently”. 

One of the five centers planned is a mother-child hospital which will be built in the Grand Lomé-Maritime region. The facility structure, which is expected to have 175 beds, should be one of the country’s top hospitals. In other, less populated, regions, the hospitals projected should each have a 50-bed capacity, according to the information available.

The INAM, let’s emphasize, is already involved in Togo’s plans to boost access to healthcare. Among others, the institution is the one in charge of deploying the universal health insurance project in the country.

This year, the state plans to invest CFA19 billion in universal health coverage.

Ayi Renaud Dossavi

To better manage the integration of private actors in its development strategy, Togo has established a public-private partnership unit, which will be attached to the Presidency. The authorities adopted a decree to this end last Thursday, during the ministers’ council.

According to the council’s statement, the new unit will “advise, and provide expertise to contractors in the preparation and execution of public-private partnership deals.” Through the move, Lomé hopes to “make the country more competitive and diversify its sources of financing for developing strategic infrastructure that will improve the living standards of populations.”

In the past few years, Togo has, through its National Development Plan notably, given more importance to private actors in its strategy to mobilize funding for its structuring projects. It even set up an investment promotion ministry to this end.

Regarding public-private partnerships, they enabled Togo to mobilize investors and resources for big projects like the Adétikopé Industrial Platform (PIA), the Kekeli Efficient Power thermal plant, and Blitta’s PV plant.