KEY RESULTS
- Expansion of Togo’s soybean sector | Support from the EIF contributed to a twelvefold increase in soybean production and led to Togo becoming the first country in the world to export organic soybeans to the European Union (EU).
- Trade mainstreaming | The Enhanced Integrated Framework (EIF) supported the launch of Togo’s new National Trade Policy, which prioritizes the need to mainstream trade into the agriculture, industry and services sectors.
- Integrating trade into government | Togo’s National Implementation Unit (NIU) has been integrated into the Ministry of Commerce.
- AfCFTA engagement | With help from the EIF, Togo developed two policies as a means to scale-up the country’s engagement in regional trade: 1) an AfCFTA national implementation strategy and 2) a schedule of tariff commitments.
- Women’s empowerment | Improvements in Togo’s cashew and shea butter production sectors, supported by the EIF, have empowered women stakeholders.
Located on the northern coast of the Gulf of Guinea on Africa’s west coast, the Togolese Republic is bordered by Ghana, Benin, and Burkina Faso. Togo is home to some 9 million inhabitants and boasts a diverse climate and vast arable lands that hold great potential for agricultural production.
The agriculture sector employs most of Togo’s workforce in the production of food crops such as cereals, tubers, and soybeans. Cash crops such as coffee, cocoa, and cotton are also important economic drivers, accounting for 20% of Togo’s export earnings.
EIF support to Togo began in 2008. Much has been achieved in the intervening years, particularly with regard to regional integration and the development of the cashew, shea, and soybean sectors both in the country and more broadly in the region.
Support has leveraged a variety of existing Togolese assets to drive economic and social development. For instance, the Port Autonome de Lomé (PAL) has highly competitive customs tariffs and allows exports to reach main European ports in an average of just seven days. Togo’s agricultural production is also highly regarded for its organic products, which are in great demand among European consumers.
Nevertheless, while agricultural exports have moderately increased over the past decade, Togo continues to struggle with a trade deficit. Like several other least developed countries (LDCs), it has also faced a range of economic challenges stemming from global and regional conflicts as well as rising energy and food prices.
In spite of that, Togo has recently embarked on a development trajectory with ambitious economic and social programmes that build on the strengths of its economy. To support Togo's national development goals, the EIF has funded nine projects and five regional projects since 2008.
Togo’s surging soybean sector
With support from the EIF, the Ministry of Commerce and Private Sector Promotion implemented a project to strengthen Togo’s soybean value chain and enhance organization in the sector. From the beginning of the project, Togo achieved a remarkable twelvefold increase in the production of soybeans, from 25,000 tonnes in 2015 to 300,000 tonnes in 2022.
The project helped develop the production and marketing skills of stakeholders and also helped producers, processors, and traders organise themselves into associations, which further generated employment opportunities. The associations provided crucial services to members, including instilling good farming practices and familiarising them with the process of obtaining organic certification. Soybean exporters were able to expand their businesses significantly, with overall export values in the country rising from just short of USD 700,000 in 2015 to almost USD 60 million in 2023.
Togo’s dedication to improving its soybean sector reached a significant milestone in 2020, when it became the first country in the world to export organic soybeans to the EU.
With its thriving soybean sector, Togo is paving the way for economic growth and creating fresh opportunities for its people.
Placing trade at the heart of development
With support from the EIF, Togo has undertaken measures to improve its institutional environment for trade through a variety of policies. These policies include national strategies for the export of agricultural products and for the application of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), as well as a National Aid for Trade Mobilization Strategy.
Between 2021 and 2022, Togo approved and launched a new National Trade Development Policy. An important achievement stemming from this new policy was the prioritization of trade programmes and projects in national budgeting, which increased from USD 96,000 annually in 2018 to USD 550,000 in 2021. This policy document guides the country’s engagement in the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) and sets out guidelines for post-COVID-19 recovery. It also mainstreams trade into the agriculture, industry and services sectors.
A support project for the implementation of the EIF was carried out between 2012 and 2018, implemented by the NIU. With the support of the EIF, the NIU delivered training courses to government officers, which improved their skills in formulating trade strategies and policies. The NIU was also integrated as a unit of the Ministry of Commerce, while staff hired by the NIU were retained as civil servants within the government.
Facilitating regional integration
The AfCFTA is the world’s largest free trade area in terms of the number of member countries, territory, and population. The Agreement brings together the 55 countries of the African Union and eight regional economic communities with the aim of establishing a single market for goods and services through the progressive elimination of tariff and non-tariff barriers to trade.
Between 2022 and 2023, a regional project funded by the EIF and the International Islamic Trade Finance Corporation was implemented by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa. It aimed to strengthen capacity in six African LDCs (Burkina Faso, Guinea, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, and Togo) to effectively engage in the AfCFTA and benefit from its spillover effects.
In Togo, the project prioritized raising awareness of the advantages of the AfCFTA for trade facilitation stakeholders (e.g., customs officials, the public and private sectors, and civil society) and conducting capacity-building training programmes. The project also supported Togo in the formulation of several policy instruments designed to enable AfCFTA implementation. These included a national AfCFTA implementation strategy and Togo’s schedule of tariff commitments. Togo also created a national AfCFTA committee as part of the National Committee for Trade Negotiations and incorporated guidelines for AfCFTA engagement into the updated 2022 National Development Policy.
In addition, between 2020 and 2023, the EIF funded a project to facilitate transport and trade in West Africa. Implemented by UN Trade and Development, the project focused on simplifying customs and border regulations, especially in the Burkina Faso-Togo corridor, by creating coordination mechanisms to enable better regional integration.
Boosting production in priority sectors
An Update to Togo’s initial 2010 Diagnostic Trade Integration Study was conducted in 2017. The update highlighted the immense untapped potential for export growth, economic growth and job creation embedded in Togo’s cashew and shea sectors.
Togo has been ranked the seventh largest shea-producing country, producing between 20,000 and 25,0000 tonnes of kernels each year. However, while stakeholders believed this could be scaled-up substantially, Togo’s limited processing and marketing techniques were holding back its ability to optimize production levels.
Togo’s NIU carried out an EIF-funded project between 2018 and 2023 to improve the competitiveness of the cashew and shea sectors, focusing on enhancing institutional and human capacities along the value chain. The project successfully increased both production levels and quality. Since the inception of the project up to 2023, the total cashew nut yield was 112,000 tonnes, with a value of more than USD 93 million. For shea butter, more than USD 21 million worth of products were produced, and 32 new markets were accessed.
The producers and processors in these two sectors received training in product processing, packaging management, and hygiene, health, and safety practices aligned with international standards. Laboratories play an important role in the process of enhancing the value of products. As such, EIF supported the renovation of analysis and testing equipment in laboratories within the value chain. These updates allowed stakeholders to enhance the quality of shea products to meet sanitary and phytosanitary requirements in target markets—especially in Europe. Here, the beneficiaries took ownership of the project achievements, which allowed them to pass on their newly gained skills and knowledge to others in the value chain.
Sowing the seeds of women’s empowerment
The cashew and shea sector project supported groups of women engaged as pickers and processors in the shea and cashew sectors. The initiative provided opportunities to participate in experience-sharing missions and donated small-scale technical support to businesses. One beneficiary, B Univers Cosmetiques, specializes in the transformation of shea butter into body and hair cosmetics, as well as cold-process soap-making. Company spokesperson Kataka Odette Dossa says the project provided support through a variety of production challenges.
Togo was also a beneficiary of an EIF-funded regional project implemented by the Global Shea Alliance, which targeted the shea sector in Benin, Burkina Faso, Mali and Togo, and focused primarily on empowering women stakeholders.
The formation of cooperatives for women shea pickers and producers empowered the women to negotiate better prices. At the cooperative level, nearly 35,000 women were supplied with 52 warehouses, 4 butter processing centres and equipment for 4 soap cooperatives. By the end of the project, they were able to produce and trade almost 10,000 metric tonnes of shea butter, valued at nearly USD 4 million.
Sustainable coordination mechanisms
By continuing to champion the development of priority industries, the Government of Togo provides a worthy example of how states can successfully support the evolution and growth of priority export sectors and sustain the effects of EIF contributions. Crucial to this ongoing support is the role of the NIU, which is now embedded into the Ministry of Commerce. The NIU continues to provide financial and technical support, and coordinate trade-related committees.
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