Togo First
Cybersecurity: Government and Asseco Group set up a Computer Emergency Response Team
A European cybersecurity firm, Asseco Group, and the government of Togo established a Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-TG) whose mission is to protect the Togolese cyberspace. This was announced on 3rd of February by Cina Lawson, minister for the digital economy and digital transformation.
In effect, the purpose of the CERT consists in“identifying, analyzing, and tackling cyberattacks against the Togolese State, citizens, businesses, and its organizations,” an official source reported. The new organization will provide training in cybersecurity, digital investigation, and cryptocurrencies, among others.
“In order to fully enjoy from the digitalization of services and the administration, the Togolese people must trust in the safety of the cyberspace. The CERT-TG is reinforcing this trust by protecting all digital actors and training local experts in cybersecurity. The launch of a CERT meets the best international standards and proves that we have the ability to achieve our ambitions,” said Cina LAWSON.
Operations at the CERT will be led by Cyber Defense Africa (CDA), a joint venture created by Asseco and the State, under the patronage of the National Agency for Cybersecurity.
Klétus Situ (intern)
Ministry of trade trains market women to bookkeep, to push them toward formal sector
The ministry of trade and local consumption promotion is training market women of Lomé’s Grand marché, teaching them rules for community life and accountability.
The workshop which ends today, regroups the members of the SEFECTO (Solidarité pour l'Épanouissement des Femmes Commerçantes du Togo) association.
Through the initiative, the government wishes to help these women move from the informal to the formal sector over time.
“Bookkeeping is one of the major challenges of market women, most of whom work in the informal sector, due to a lack of information and of management skills”, said Aflimba JOHNSON COMLAN-CATARIA, president of the SEFECTO. “This workshop will both enable our members to move towards the formal sector and therefore benefit from the State’s incentives and support mechanisms”, she added.
It’s worth emphasizing that the present meeting was recommended during the first edition of the Private Sector Week, held in Togo from 4th – 7th, November 2019.
Decentralization: Public authorities work on an update of municipal development plans
Togolese authorities have initiated works to update the 2021 edition of the Municipal Development Plans (PDC) as part of the decentralization process ongoing in the country for some years now.
Municipal and regional experts in decentralization are in a two-day meeting to perfect and validate the first assessment of the plans concerned.
The assessment was launched on December 17, 2020, by the Ministry of Territorial Development, which is actively engaged in the country’s decentralization process.
“Amid the present context, integrating a full communalization, SDGs, the national development, the new government roadmap, the digital environment (...), it is a good idea to draw a new guide taking into account the new components,” says Dr. Demakou Yendoubé, Director of Spatial Orientation of the Territory.
The meeting will help “validate PDCs based on the old and assess new ones”, so as to “design a better guide, which we will make available to all stakeholders”.
Eventually, the update will enable the launch of a new decentralization guide for Togolese municipalities.
Togo seeks energy developers to expand its power network
The government is hiring power developers to carry out electrification works in all regions of the country except the Maritime. The related international tender was launched by Mila Aziablé, minister of energy and mine. The closing date for bid submission is March 22, 2021.
Winning bidders will provide and set up medium-tension and low-tension equipment in the regions concerned.
The project aligns with Lomé’s efforts to electrify the whole country. The government wants to provide electricity to the whole Togolese population by 2030.
Séna Akoda
Moov-Africa to deploy submarine cable from Casablanca to Lomé
Last Wednesday, Moov-Africa announced it would deploy a submarine cable from Casablanca to Togo.
According to Abdellah Tabhiret, managing director of Moov-Africa, who disclosed the information, “This cable will develop and improve international coverage and connectivity, especially national connectivity”. “It has a great capacity which will allow internet users to surf properly”, he added.
With the announcement, the company hopes to regain the trust of its subscribers. Indeed, from the first half of 2019 through the first half of 2020, the telecom operator lost around 500,000 users (dipping from 3.608 million to 3.108 million), according to data released by its parent company, Maroc Télécom.
Séna Akoda
Togo eyes 200MW of clean energy output by 2030
From 3MW now, Togo seeks to boost its clean energy production to 200MW by 2030.
This should enable the country to achieve its goal of getting half of its energy mix from renewable sources. And while many solar power projects are underway in this framework, solar energy is not the only resource Togo relies on to achieve its objective. According to public authorities, hydropower is also an option.
Under the national electrification strategy, Lomé also plans to combine new solutions (mini and off-grid systems) with the traditional grid.
Let’s recall that as at 2018, according to data from the ministry of mines and energy, 45% of Togolese had access to electricity, with 8% of them living in rural areas.
Séna Akoda
Greater mobile penetration drives up the number of internet and social media users in Togo
In Togo, 96% of the population has access to mobile phones. This, according to the 2021 Digital Report recently released by We Are Social and Hootsuite, explains the increasing access to the internet and greater presence of Togolese on social media.
Based on the report, there were 124,000 new internet users in the country in 2019-2020. Overall, the number of internet users in the country in this period was 1.7 million, thus 21% of the overall population.
The increase in the number of internet users was driven by activity on the mobile segment, due to greater use of platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp, or Twitter. Indeed, still over the period reviewed in the report, there were 81,000 new social network users, thus 14% more than the year before. In all, 650,000 social network users were recorded in Togo (7.9% of the population). More than 96% of them were active on social platforms via their smartphones.
It is worth noting that Togo counts 170,000 internet users present on LinkedIn, mostly men (70%). This allows advertisers to reach 4% of the population with targeted ads.
Regarding the types of phones used by people in Togo, most of the mobile internet users prefer Android devices (87.3%) to other OS. Only 3.7% of these users are using iOS devices.
Worldwide, We are Social and Hootsuite in their report estimated that half a billion people more joined social networks in 2019-2020. There were 4.2 billion social media users that year, with more than 98% cconnecting via mobile devices.
Klétus Situ (intern)
The government initiates efforts to boost the roots and tubers sector
The government of Togo intends to boost productivity and yields in its roots and tubers sector, in the coming agricultural campaign. To this end, the Togolese Ministry of Agriculture organized last week a practical training for about a hundred actors active in this sector.
The participants, who came from the Maritime, Plateaux, Central, and Kara regions, were taught techniques of multiplication and conservation of yam, cassava, and sweet potato. The training session, which lasted the whole week, took place at the Centre Agronomique du littoral in Davié, about ten kilometers north of Lomé.
Grown in many varieties, these three crops occupy more than 15% of the country's total agricultural area. They are grown in 35 out of the country’s 39 prefectures, thus forming the basis of important agri-food value chains.
Yam, cassava, and sweet potato are food crops with proven development potential. Cassava, for example, is processed into various derivatives: tapioca, gari, starches, bread, chips, and French fries.
Klétus Situ (intern)
First phase of AT2ER’s mini-solar networks to cover 129 communities
On Jan 29, the Togolese Agency for Electrification and Renewable Energies (AT2ER) released the list of 129 communities it had picked to benefit from the first phase of the mini-solar networks electrification project.
This is a new milestone for the project which should cover 317 rural communities in Togo. 11,000 kW of installed power and 480 km of distribution network will be deployed for some 45,000 subscribers.
Works projected include developing, co-financing, building, and maintaining mini-solar and distribution networks. There is also the supply, and commercialization of power generated.
It should be noted that in Q4 2019, the AT2ER, the government’s arm in charge of clean energy, issued a pre-qualification notice for developers of mini-solar networks, in line with this project.
Séna Akoda
AfDB has committed CFA265 billion to Togo so far, more to come
So far, the African Development Bank (AfDB) has committed around CFA265 billion in Togo. The figure was disclosed by the resident representative of the Bank, George Bohoussou, whose three-year term in the country has come to an end.
“The current portfolio, in terms of commitment, between the AfDB and Togo, is about 265 billion FCFA (...) and we expect it to increase because there are projects whose second phases are in preparation,” said the outgoing representative.