Trade between China and Togo posted “unprecedented” growth in 2025, rising 56.4% in the first nine months of the year, Chinese Ambassador to Togo Wang Min said at a year-end press conference on Friday.

Bilateral trade reached a record $4 billion from January to September, she said. “This progress reflects greater confidence between our two countries and the strengthening of our comprehensive strategic partnership,” she added.

Togolese exports to China grew even faster, rising fivefold year-on-year, an increase of nearly 400%. The ambassador described this as evidence of “Togo’s renewed place in regional and global value chains,” supported by China’s gradual opening to African products.

This trend follows China’s zero-tariff policy on all eligible African product categories, announced at the 2024 Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC). “Togo is among the countries benefiting fully from this measure,” Wang said.

One key development now concerns access for Togolese soybeans to the Chinese market, a process she said is in its final stages. Once health approvals and technical protocols are completed, Togo could become one of China’s new suppliers in a major global market.

Such a breakthrough would “create a major opportunity for Togolese producers,” the ambassador said, with potential to reshape the country’s agricultural export sector.

For Beijing, these results underscore Togo’s growing role in its West African engagement. “Our relations reached an important milestone in 2025,” Wang concluded, adding that the two countries still have “substantial untapped potential” for the years ahead.

Fiacre E. Kakpo

Togo’s northern Kara region may soon host an industrial park backed by China, officials said, following talks in Lomé between Togolese authorities and a delegation of Chinese investors.

The planned park would house operations in agribusiness, renewable energy, agricultural machinery assembly and the production of electrical equipment. Chairing the meeting, the Secretary-General to the Presidency, Sandra Johnson, said the initiative would help drive the country’s industrialization, create skilled jobs and support local processing of domestic resources.

During the talks, the Chinese delegation reviewed the project’s framework. The initiative is expected to be finalized through a later partnership agreement between Lomé and Beijing, in line with both countries’ stated aim to deepen their cooperation, a direction reaffirmed at the 2024 Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC).

The proposal adds to the many programs China already supports in Togo across social and economic sectors.

While Togo already hosts the Adétikopé Industrial Park (PIA), the planned facility in Kara is intended to act as a new driver of industrialization. The announcement comes days after Togo signed an agreement with the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) to implement a Country Partnership Program for 2026-2030, which focuses on strengthening agribusiness value chains and developing a future industrial park in Agbélouvé.

Esaïe Edoh

Launched in 2015, the DokitaEyes application now has 45,000 users and more than 230 partner health facilities, co-founder Koffivi Agbetiafa said, marking ten years of growth in a sector where user adoption remains the biggest challenge.

From Hospital Runners to Digital Platform

The origins of DokitaEyes date back to 2014, with the creation of the “Coursier d'hôpital” association. The founders first noticed that elderly people, pregnant women and people with disabilities struggled to move through Togo’s health system. “You see an elderly person standing in line at every step, buying a consultation voucher, then waiting again for hours in front of the doctor’s office,” Agbetiafa said.

The association initially deployed “medical facilitators” in health centers to assist these vulnerable patients and handle all administrative steps. The system began in four public facilities before expanding to about 20 centers, including private and faith-based clinics.

Digitizing the service helped meet rising demand, including from the diaspora, who wanted to monitor the health of relatives in Togo. “We realized we needed an application that allowed patients to manage their own follow-up,” the co-founder said. Patients could now report side effects directly to the prescriber without waiting for a facilitator’s visit.

A Digital Health Record Against Data Fragmentation

DokitaEyes addresses a systemic weakness in Togo’s health system: the lack of continuity in medical follow-up. “A patient buys a paper notebook when they arrive at the hospital. They don’t return with the same notebook at the next visit. At each consultation, they buy a new one,” Agbetiafa said.

“You cannot ensure proper care when the health professional works blindly because there is no medical history,” he added.

The platform stores each patient’s medical record, which is accessible through a QR code. Patients show their card at consultations, and only the authorized prescriber can access the file. “Patients cannot see other patients’ information,” Agbetiafa noted, highlighting data-protection safeguards.

The application now includes several features: booking appointments with medical facilitators, sending prescriptions to partner pharmacies and laboratories, paying online via Mobile Money, and receiving test results directly in the app.

A health-insurance module handles patient co-payments with the Universal Health Insurance (AMU) system and private insurers. The startup hopes to position itself for nationwide AMU deployment.

A new feature also lets users search for medicines and tests available in nearby partner facilities within a 5-kilometer radius and pay directly through the platform.

Promising Results in Rural Areas

Between 2018 and 2022, DokitaEyes rolled out a community health-monitoring program for pregnant women and children under five in remote areas.

Community health workers used the app to create patient files during home visits. They tracked vaccination status, prenatal visits, pregnancy danger signs, and symptoms in children.

“We supported nearly 15,000 pregnant women and did not record a single death,” Agbetiafa said. Togo’s maternal mortality rate is around 401 deaths per 100,000 live births. The program also covered nearly 70,000 children under age five. “Digitization saves lives,” the co-founder said.

The program slowed after donor funding ended, and activity now continues with reduced field engagement.

An Application Accessible Online and Offline

“DokitaEyes is accessible both online and offline,” Agbetiafa said. Urban users rely on the online version, while rural users, who often face poor network coverage, use the offline mode.

Some platform services are free, such as requesting delivery of test results from partner laboratories, with patients paying only the delivery fee. Other services are paid: booking a facilitator is charged to deter frivolous requests.

Creating a digital patient file costs 2,500 CFA francs for a virtual card and 4,500 CFA francs for a physical QR code card.

Team size varies by project: around ten people during normal operations, rising to as many as 50 full-time staff during large deployments, not including volunteers working in the field. The co-founder declined to disclose revenue figures.

Adoption, the Main Obstacle

DokitaEyes was a finalist for the RFI Challenge App Africa prize in 2016 and has won several international awards. The Ministry of Health also supported its development.

“The key challenge is scaling up adoption,” Agbetiafa said, citing issues of training, equipment and regulation.

Data protection now absorbs much of the technical team’s resources. “We no longer focus on new features. Most of our work is monitoring, protecting and securing the system,” the co-founder explained.

Regional Expansion Planned

DokitaEyes is already active in Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast and is entering Benin. Expansion to Ghana has been paused due to the lack of a sufficiently structured local team. The company aims to reach 4 million users within two years, driven by subregional expansion.

Ayi Renaud Dossavi

Togolese company KYA-Energy Group won the Best African C&I Project 2025 award at the AFSIA Solar Awards, held alongside the Renewable Energy Forum for Africa (REFA 2025) in Accra.

The Commercial and Industrial (C&I) category covers solutions for businesses, industries, SMEs, commercial buildings and large non-residential facilities. The award recognized the company's KYA-SoP solution, a locally assembled solar generator offered through financing options designed for households and SMEs. KYA-Energy Group focuses on local production and partnerships with banks to expand its reach, particularly in rural areas.

“This award recognizes the work of the teams and customers who have supported the company for ten years,” said Professor Yao Azoumah, the company’s CEO.

The REFA 2025 forum in Accra brought together solar industry players and financiers to discuss ways to accelerate Africa’s energy transition. The awards highlight projects that have a direct impact on energy access, decentralized production and innovative financing models.

The award follows a series of recent recognitions for the company, including the Regional Integration Prize at the OAPI Brand Awards a few weeks earlier.

Ayi Renaud Dossavi

Togolese startup Rôbalôtô won the top Francophone Africa prize at the Africa Climate Innovation Challenge 2025 in Uganda, receiving a 10,000-dollar award for its digitally supported community plastic waste management model.

The project was selected from entries submitted across the continent. Rôbalôtô’s approach treats waste as a local economic resource and engages households, schools and young people in sorting and recycling through financial and social incentives, with the aim of reducing pollution while creating income opportunities.

For founder Aymane Gbadamassi, the award acknowledges several years of field work. He thanked program partners including the Green Africa Youth Organization, 3E’s4Africa, UNDP Uganda, The Earthshot Prize and Start.Up Lounge Africa, as well as Togolese institutions supporting digital innovation. He said the prize shows that plastic can become a resource worth recovering.

Rôbalôtô plans to expand its model to other areas and strengthen its educational programs, including solar-powered school bags for students. The company aims to reach more families and schools to deepen the economic and environmental impact of its work.

Ayi Renaud Dossavi