Togo First
Orange and Openclassroom team up to provide free e-courses in Togo and others
Orange Africa, the telecom operator, has entered into an agreement with the French online course platform Openclassroom to provide 3-18 months courses on digital professions, French magazine Jeune Afrique reported.
In effect, Orange Africa will help provide its courses to public employment services, such as ANPE in Togo. Others countries involved in the program are Tunisia, Morocco and Benin. However, talks are going on to add Niger, Senegal, Madagascar and more.
The project aims to allow both students and professionals to access certificate and degree based courses. Enrolled students must be at undergraduate and master’s levels, with certificates recognized in France.
Courses will be available online, via mobile especially.
Currently financed by Orange alone, the initiative will help African youth get more jobs as subscription fees for openclassroom’s courses which were too onerous for this group of individuals, have been cancelled.
As it plans to train thousands of people, with Openclassrom courses, Orange will establish various training centres which will collaborate with local universities and schools and the Agence universitaire pour la francophonie (AUF) also. “These centres will be meeting points where classes requiring students’ presence will be given”, said Thierry Coilhac, director of e-learning at Orange.
Fiacre E. Kakpo
Spurred by PNIASA and PASA, poultry production soars significantly in 2011-2017
In Togo, as agriculture fares well, poultry is not left out it appears. Indeed, according to data released by Dr. Daniel Batawui, Head of Husbandry, poultry production recorded a major increase, from 8 million chickens, in 2011, to 25 million in 2017, thus tripling over the period.
The surge results from various efforts made in the sector, knowingly under the National Programme for Agricultural Investment and Food Security (PNIASA) and the Agricultural Sector Support Programme (PASA) implemented in 2012-2015.
In details, PNIASA impacted 13,000 actors in the poultry sector and PASA enabled vaccination of 90% of poultry (8 million in three campaigns) over the period reviewed, through the mobilization of 2,900 rural vaccinators and 25 private veterinarians.
The sector expects the recent growth to be sustained and authorities intend to make its actors into true professionals.
PNIASA, it should be highlighted, is expected to capture an investment of CFA1,250 billion in 2017-2026.
Togo to benefit from ECOWAS’ recently launched business incubation scheme
On Feb. 22, 2018, ECOWAS launched the first phase of its companies incubation programme by creating a first pilot centre in the framework of the agricultural entrepreneurship scheme, at Tenkodogo, Burkina Faso.
Developed by ECOWAS and NEPAD Spanish Fund for African Women Empowerment, the incubation programme aims to support women in rural areas, across West Africa.
It will, among others, help tackle many challenges encountered by women running small and medium-size businesses in the agricultural sector. To be extended to others countries of the region over the next six months, this programme is quite opportune for Togo which has launched on the same day it was started a programme for rural development in the Djagble plain (PDRD).
The incubator will indeed boost access of Togolese women to markets and financing.
Togo to benefit from a $3bn investment from Turkey through ECOWAS in the next 5 years
Togo will benefit from a $3 billion investment that Turkey will inject into the ECOWAS over the next five years. This was announced on the sidelines of the ECOWAS-Turkey economic forum taking place in Istanbul and ending today.
Turkey through its new commitment, according to website Horizon-news.net, wishes to create financial opportunities and foster technology transfer to boost investment in West Africa. Leading the Togolese delegation attending the forum is Germain Meba, President of Togo’s chamber of commerce and industry.
Togo should capture a significant portion of the facility, considering efforts made by the government to improve business climate in the country and make private sector a driver of growth and development.
Pending the project’s concretization, an economic cooperation agreement was signed between Togo and Turkey. It plans for programmes which will be developed in sectors like infrastructures, education, agriculture and energy. According to Germain Mèba, the agreement would draw more economic operators on international market.
Information on land now accessible to all in Togo
Under reforms established by the government to improve business climate in the country, access to land-related information has been democratized for all.
The announcement came from top officials at the State Domains and Cadaster Office (DADC), on Feb. 21, 2018. This was on the first day of the training and exchange session between press actors and the Business Climate Cell.
The new measure, the officials said, should improve transparency in land management and also help reduce land conflicts significantly.
Truly, by having access to information regarding a specific land, potential buyers can quickly check if the seller is the property’s legal owner.
This would avoid conflict, in the event the land has already been sold to another person.
To have free access to land information, interested individuals are to pay CFA2000 which correspond to research fees. However, regarding land maps, related information is free to access.
University of Lomé now 82nd best university in Africa, according to UniRank’s 2018 top 200 African universities index
The University of Lomé was ranked 82nd best university in Africa, in the 2018 Top 200 African Universities of UniRank. This a is significant improvement compared to 2017’s edition where the university was 109th or even to 2015’s where it was not even on the index.
On this rankings which can be accessed at www.4icu.org/top-universities-africa, South African universities dominate the Top 10 grabbing eight spots. These are followed by the University of Nairobi (9th) in Kenya and the American University in Cairo (10th) ,Egypt.
The Criteria used to rank the universities include visibility and enrolment level, presence in search engines, etc. With its performance, the University of Lomé beat famous universities such as the Hassan II University of Casablanca (Morocco), University of Cape Coast (Ghana) and University of Education Winneba (Ghana), among others.
Let it be noted that some universities like the University of Abomey-Calavi (Benin) and that of Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso) are not featured on the 2018 Top 200 African Universities Ranking.
Togo: Electronic signature to be used soon at notaries’ offices
Soon, it will be possible to sign documents digitally at a notary’s office in Togo. This was revealed yesterday by the new president of the chamber of notaries of Togo, while he was assuming office.
The new measure is a significant milestone in dematerializing processes and it should save both notaries and their clients a lot of time with paperwork.
While it aims mainly to improve quality of service provided to clients, the initiative should also tackle the issue of low activity resulting from the various incentives recently initiated by the government to improve the country’s business environment. Indeed, the reforms which include tax reliefs, cancellation of registration fee when creating a company and reduction of property transfer fees, are threading on notaries’ toes.
However, with electronic signature, notaries across the country will be able to save their costs.
Fiacre E. Kakpo
Corruption Perceptions Index 2017: Togo stagnates, according to Transparency International
On Feb. 21, 2018, German NGO, Transparency International released its yearly report on corruption in public sector for 2017.
According to this year’s edition which ranked 180 countries, up from 176 a year before, Togo is no more corrupted than last year, or the year before that. Indeed, since 2015, the country’s score has been stagnating at 32, against 29 in 2014 and 2013.
Togo loses a place in the global ranking, falling to the 117th position. However in Africa, it remains among the continent’s 25 least corrupted countries, despite falling two places in the regional ranking.
Worldwide, average score was 43 and sub-Saharan Africa is among the planet’s most corrupted regions. The continent’s average score is the same as Togo (32).
According to the report which focuses on linkages between corruption, press freedom and civic society engagement, more than two thirds of countries ranked have a score that is below average (50).
The study also states that each week, a journalist is killed in a highly corrupted country, highlighting that since 2012, most of journalists murdered around the world were in this country.
“Given current crackdowns on both civil society and the media worldwide, we need to do more to protect those who speak up,” said Patricia Moreira, Managing Director, Transparency International.
Back to the index, New Zealand and Denmark shared the first place, followed by Finland, Norway and Switzerland.
In the African Union, Botswana is the least corrupted nation. It is followed by Seychelles, Cape Verde, Rwanda and Namibia. In the WAEMU, Senegal, Burkina and Benin are the top three countries.
Fiacre E. Kakpo
Togo: Teolis SA to start operations on Feb. 22, 2018
As announced earlier on, telecom operator Teolis SA will launch its activities on Feb. 22, 2018.
With the arrival of this new internet service provider, the third in Togo, populations’ access to broadband would very likely improve.
More so considering the upcoming operationalization of a fourth actor, Groupe Vivendi Africa (GVA). This would contribute to a significant decrease in communication costs applied in the country.
All these, let it be noted, fall in line with government’s plan for the sector to provide broadband access to more than 90% of the population and 95% of companies in Togo, by 2022.
In Togo, informal sector contributes 20-30% of GDP – IMF (report)
The Informal sector represents 20-30% of Togo’s gross domestic product (GDP) according to a report released by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Compared to its neighbors, Benin, Ghana, Burkina Faso and most countries in the sub-Saharan African region, Togo is doing well. A feat which is to be attributed to the various efforts of the government to make private sector the economy’s driver.
In Africa, informal sector contributes about 40% of GDP of low revenue countries and 35% of GDP of intermediate revenue nations. While this figure is lower in Togo, it still remains that the sector captures about 90% of all jobs in private sector.
Indeed, a recent study carried out by the national agency for employment and GIZ backed this evidence. 80% of surveyed population under the study, mainly youth active in the trade sector in various key towns of the country, work in the informal sector.
IMF said reasons behind this phenomenon include tax and social charges, institutions’ quality and the economy’s size. In its study, the Bretton Woods institution found out that the higher the difference between total labor cost in a formal economy and that in informal economy, the greater the temptation for businesses to stay off the radar.
Fiacre E. Kakpo