Togo

The SIHAM is defined as a Hydro Agro Meteorological Information System. It was initiated as part of component 1 of the FSRP Togo and aims to facilitate the dissemination of agro-climatic information in the form of voice messages and SMS to agricultural producers.

This system was born of the FSRP's ambition to offer an innovative, effective and viable digital solution aimed at improving the dissemination of rainfall forecasts to the beneficiaries of the services provided by Togo's National Meteorological Agency (ANAMET). SIHAM is therefore being set up using a 4-stage deployment approach, the first of which is the training of surveyors.

This training took place on Monday 6 May 2024 in Sokodé and was attended by around thirty people, including 15 surveyors from ICAT and 10 from CTOP. The latter received training in the use and appropriation of the data collection tools made available to them to collect information from the FSRP's target beneficiaries, mainly in the planned agricultural development zones (ZAAP) and at farm level.

For the investigators, this training is highly beneficial. According to them, it reinforces their skills in the use of IT tools in the field and allows them to discover new tools such as SIHAM. "We encourage the FSRP in this innovation", they said.

As a reminder, SIHAM is in its pilot phase and is being developed following an agreement between the FSRP TOGO and the IFDC on behalf of ANAMET. It aims to reach at least 1,000 small-scale farmers and covers the Savannah, Central, Eastern Plateau and Maritime regions, with a pilot phase lasting 04 months.

There are a total of 120 trainees, including 100 tractor operators and 20 maintenance technicians, all from the "Entreprises Cantonales de Travaux Mécanisés" (ECTM) programme, whose mission is to help increase the rate of mechanisation of cultivation operations.

This initiative, supported by the FSRP TOGO, aims to equip farmers with the skills and tools they need to boost their productivity and improve profitability.

Designed specifically for young people aspiring to become tractor operators with no previous experience, this training equips them with the essential skills to use cutting-edge agricultural technologies effectively and responsibly. Held from 28 March to 7 April 2024 at the Institut de formation agricole (Infa) in Tové, the training combines theory and practice, and focuses on: (i) tractor knowledge and operation, (ii) mastery of manoeuvring and maintenance operations, and (iii) safety and operating rules. According to the trainers, these different aspects will help to turn these aspiring tractor operators into key players in innovation, entrepreneurship and the skilled labour needed to drive forward agricultural modernisation in Togo.

This activity is part of the partnership between the government of Togo and the Office Chérifien des Phosphates (OCP Africa), set up by the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Rural Development through an innovative training programme focusing on agricultural mechanisation.

Carried out by the Agence de transformation agricole (ATA), this training course is supported by the Ministry's technical departments, such as DAEMA and ICAT, to ensure successful implementation and maximum impact.

Through this training programme, the FSRP is contributing to a more prosperous Togolese agriculture, where mechanisation plays a key role in achieving food self-sufficiency and sustainable economic growth.

Raising poultry (hens and guinea fowl) is a common practice in the savannah region, formerly known as the "white gold" region. It is also the area par excellence of the roan tree and of harnessed farming, where communities live partly from the production and marketing of poultry to meet the basic needs of their families.

However, growing threats and pressure from armed terrorist groups have increased the vulnerability of people in the savannah region and had a significant impact on the activities and lives of producers, including livestock farmers. This situation has prompted the Government to take prompt measures to enable the people of this area to improve their resilience.

These measures include the establishment of the Emergency Programme to Strengthen Community Resilience and Security (PURS), under which the FSRP is implementing numerous activities to ensure sustainable food and nutritional security and strengthen the productivity system with a view to achieving effective resilience in rural households.

The FSRP produced and introduced into households a core of broodstock consisting of 2 roosters and 4 hens to serve 169 hen breeders, spread across the 7 prefectures of the Savanes region. A total of 1,290 broodstock, including 1,075 hens and 215 roosters, were distributed to breeders in the Savanes region.

This project aims to boost the productivity of livestock farmers by increasing the number of poultry, whose products (meat and eggs) are not only a source of animal protein needed to cover the food and nutritional requirements of households in general and children in particular, but also a source of permanent family income to meet other non-nutritional needs.

To reinforce the need for accountability in the implementation of its funding, citizen monitoring of activities by civil society has been integrated into the monitoring and evaluation mechanism of the Food System Resilience Programme in West Africa (FSRP-Togo). To this end, training was organised from 18 to 19 January 2024 in Kpalimé (West Plateaux region) for members of civil society organisations who are members of the Coordination pour le suivi évaluation par la société civile (COSESC) (Coordination for monitoring and evaluation by civil society), with a view to ensuring a real understanding of the FSRP's intervention strategies, the key concepts and principles of results-based management, and the monitoring tools for exercising citizen control.

In the space of two days, almost 25 Togolese civil society players, including 10 women, have been equipped to better monitor and control the actions of the FSRP in Togo.

This participative and interactive training session was also an opportunity to share the objectives, expected results, intervention strategy, monitoring and evaluation mechanism and tools, gender mainstreaming, complaint management mechanisms and gender-based violence within the framework of the FSRP. The concepts of citizen control of public action (CCAP) were also presented, with examples.

Women in the agricultural sector, whether producers, workers or agricultural entrepreneurs, face greater difficulties than men in gaining access to productive resources, markets and services. Most women carry out their activities at family level, using low-performance technologies and on a small scale, both in production and in processing and marketing. They have fewer opportunities to farm and less chance of accessing land on a rental basis. Their access is usually limited to plots that are of poorer quality, smaller and further from their homes. These disparities between men and women are a constraint on the development of profitable productive activities and the eradication of poverty in rural households.

To make an effective contribution to overcoming these gender inequalities in Togo's agricultural sector, the FSRP has supported capacity-building for the national institutions and players involved in its implementation, on the strategy and tools for integrating the gender and youth dimensions into all the project's components and activities in order to make it more inclusive and sensitive to this disadvantaged group.

This training course, run by CORAF's regional gender adviser, Dr Mariam MAÏGA, from 5 to 8 December 2023 in Lomé, brought together representatives of technical structures, members of the ministry's gender focal unit, agricultural research centres, extension services, inter-professional players, the network of women farmers and civil society.

Over four days, subjects relating to the concept and tools of gender analysis, the impact of climate change, resilience, analysis of gender aspects in the agri-food system and the gender action plan were addressed.

Ultimately, this training will make it easier to take account of the specific needs of disadvantaged groups in accessing and adopting technologies that are sensitive to climate, gender, nutrition, access to developed land, inputs, quality seeds and extension services, among others.

The visit, which took place on 13 November 2023, was part of the cooperation between Togo and the World Bank Group to discuss the main challenges facing the structural transformation of Togo's agriculture.

It comes six months after the visit of the President of the World Bank, during which the FSRP TOGO financed the purchase of 34,000 tonnes of NKP 15 15 15 fertiliser for agricultural producers.

"I've come here because I want to listen to you and find out what we can do differently to improve your yields and your living and working conditions", said the World Bank's Director of Operations, Marie-Chantal Uwanyiligira, during her discussions with the farmers.

Théophile Komi DZAKPA, secretary general of the ZAAP management committee, said: "We were particularly impressed firstly by the visit, and secondly by the openness and attention shown to us by the delegation. This encourages us to make a greater effort in our farming activities", he confided, before going on to say "The Anyron ZAAP, where we are, was created in 2021 and covers 60 hectares for 88 producers, 62 of whom are women. At the beginning, everyone was doing their own thing. But with the support of our authorities, we are now organised. In three years, harvests have risen from 600 kilos to 3 tonnes per hectare to date. We have sold 10.45 tonnes to Togo's national food security agency (ANSAT) and currently have 102 tonnes in stock for our needs. On average, we have a yield of 3,150 kg per hectare," he said.

Other topics covered included improving agricultural work, access to water in all seasons, storage and the development of tracks to facilitate the movement of produce.

As a reminder, for the period from 2024 to 2030, Togo, with the support of the World Bank, is in the process of drawing up a new project called the "Agricultural Sector Modernisation Project", worth US$100 million. It will focus on solutions to sustainably contain the effects of the various food crises, particularly those caused by climate change.

More than just a visit, it was a time for in-depth discussions, listening to producers and hearing their stories.

The FSRP's Complaints Management Mechanism (CMM) is a system for clarifying misunderstandings, dealing effectively and fairly with complaints and resolving complaints and problems arising from project implementation. Divided into six categories of complaint, the MGP functions as an early warning system and can help to identify and resolve problems before they escalate, thus avoiding costly and time-consuming disputes.

For the FSRP Togo, this mechanism consists of six levels of referral (village, canton, commune, prefecture, region, central) and five levels of processing: cantonal, communal, prefectural, regional and central. At each processing level, a complaints management committee is set up to receive, record, process (resolve), review and archive complaints.

To facilitate the complaints management process, the FSRP has begun to build the capacity of the members of the project's complaints management committee. The first stage of the tour, which began on 31 October 2023, visited the seven prefectures of the Savanes region and brought together around fifty participants in each prefecture. They were given a better understanding of how to fill in registers, write up minutes and fill in complaint management forms, including those relating to gender-based violence, sexual harassment and all other complaints arising from the implementation of the project.

To this end, the project has provided all the committees with registers for recording and acknowledging complaints, registers for resolving complaints and minutes, and forms for managing gender-based violence/sexual harassment, which were distributed during capacity-building sessions in each prefecture.

With a view to helping households improve their resilience in the face of food insecurity and malnutrition, women leaders and women from organised groups (RENAFAT, cooperatives and others) have benefited from training in the processing of foodstuffs with high nutritional value, including soya, orange-fleshed sweet potatoes (PDCO) and the preparation of moringa sauces and other vegetables. The aim of the training is to promote nutrition education and good food practice, and to popularise basic concepts of nutrition and food hygiene.

The training took place in the country's three northern regions (Savanes, Kara and Central) and consisted firstly of training the trainers, then training the women leaders from 19 districts, divided into 21 sessions, and finally relaying the training to the contact groups.

In the prefecture of Kpendjal, for example, the sixty or so women trained expressed their joy and gratitude to the FSRP, which had enabled them to benefit from this training through the nutrition division of the Ministry of Health. "We really thank the FSRP project, because thanks to it we have learned how to make doughnuts, milk, cheese and many other products not only for our own consumption but also for sale. This enables us to help our husbands with the family expenses and gives us financial independence", they emphasised.

To facilitate the training, the FSRP provided the women with cooking kits consisting of aluminium pots and pans, SMOAC-type stoves, wooden spatulas, aluminium cups and ladles, ordinary stainless steel table spoons, plastic buckets and dishes, and 555-type plates and dishes. This multi-faceted support from the FSRP was greatly appreciated by the beneficiaries, who broke into a dance and expressed their great satisfaction in the following terms: "What the FSRP project has done for us is something we never dreamed of. Projects have been coming to visit us for a long time, but they haven't offered us this equipment, which meant that we had difficulty carrying out the training sessions. We used to lend utensils here and there, but with this equipment from the FSRP, we're really fulfilled.

Through this multifaceted support, the FSRP is helping to reduce poverty among women in rural areas and to lay the foundations for effectively combating food and nutritional insecurity in Togo.

By the end of the training, more than 20,609 women will have been strengthened to date.

With a view to helping households improve their resilience in the face of food insecurity and malnutrition, women leaders and women from organised groups (RENAFAT, cooperatives and others) have benefited from training in the processing of foodstuffs with high nutritional value, including soya, orange-fleshed sweet potatoes (PDCO) and the preparation of moringa sauces and other vegetables. The aim of the training is to promote nutrition education and good food practice, and to popularise basic concepts of nutrition and food hygiene.

The training took place in the country's three northern regions (Savanes, Kara and Central) and consisted firstly of training the trainers, then training the women leaders from 19 districts, divided into 21 sessions, and finally relaying the training to the contact groups.

In the prefecture of Kpendjal, for example, the sixty or so women trained expressed their joy and gratitude to the FSRP, which had enabled them to benefit from this training through the nutrition division of the Ministry of Health. "We really thank the FSRP project, because thanks to it we have learned how to make doughnuts, milk, cheese and many other products not only for our own consumption but also for sale. This enables us to help our husbands with the family expenses and gives us financial independence", they emphasised.

To facilitate the training, the FSRP provided the women with cooking kits consisting of aluminium pots and pans, SMOAC-type stoves, wooden spatulas, aluminium cups and ladles, ordinary stainless steel table spoons, plastic buckets and dishes, and 555-type plates and dishes. This multi-faceted support from the FSRP was greatly appreciated by the beneficiaries, who broke into a dance and expressed their great satisfaction in the following terms: "What the FSRP project has done for us is something we never dreamed of. Projects have been coming to visit us for a long time, but they haven't offered us this equipment, which meant that we had difficulty carrying out the training sessions. We used to lend utensils here and there, but with this equipment from the FSRP, we're really fulfilled.

Through this multifaceted support, the FSRP is helping to reduce poverty among women in rural areas and to lay the foundations for effectively combating food and nutritional insecurity in Togo.

By the end of the training, more than 20,609 women will have been strengthened to date.

Pests and diseases are a major constraint on agricultural development. In line with National Specialisation Centres (NSC) approach promoted by CORAF, Togo, through the Institut Togolais de Recherche Agronomique (ITRA), is positioning itself as an NSC to tackle the challenge of pests and diseases that are hampering food security in sub-Saharan Africa.

ITRA and experts from the region met in Lomé from 09 to 11 August 2023 to discuss issues relating to pests and diseases affecting crops and livestock. These  specialists, including plant pathologists, entomologists, nematologists, weed scientists, as well as veterinarians from Togo and other ECOWAS member countries and Chad, bear witness to the regional commitment to a collective response to these crucial challenges.

A regional approach to combating pests and diseases

The establishment of the NSC on pests and diseases in Togo reflects the region's determination to tackle major agricultural issues from a common perspective. This step forward represents a significant contribution to food security and agricultural development in sub-Saharan Africa and beyond. Similarly, the establishment of this Centre in Togo has the support of the national authorities and is part of the Programme on Food System Resilience in West Africa (PRSA/FSRP), funded by the World Bank.

In addition, the National Specialisation Centre (NSC) concept is perfectly aligned with the regional commitment to integration, particularly in the ECOWAS region. This approach aims to pool research efforts to meet common agricultural challenges and exploit the comparative advantages of each country in a specific value chain.

Synergy for mutual research

Togo joins other countries in the region that have already set up NHAs in areas such as maize, coarse grains, livestock, fruit and vegetables, roots and tubers, rice, plantain, aquaculture and mangrove rice. This initiative reflects the growing importance of agricultural research and development in meeting regional food and environmental challenges.

By capitalising on the experiences of previous NSCs, Togo is well positioned to advance pest management and contribute to regional food security. The successful launch of the CNS bioagresseurs demonstrates Togo's willingness to address agricultural challenges in a proactive and innovative way, with the support of CORAF and ECOWAS and other regional partners. This example illustrates how agricultural research and development can play a crucial role in achieving sustainable and resilient agriculture, while strengthening regional cooperation and partnerships.