Blamé Ekoue

Despite their significant energy potential, many West African countries are too often faced with untimely power cuts affecting activities in all their major sectors.While the vision of a regional electricity market is beginning to materialise in the countries of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), only 42% of the total population of this region has access to electricity, according to the World Bank in 2022.The African Development Bank (AfDB) has noted that “the energy deficit costs the entire African continent 2-4% of its GDP yearly”. However, these countries have a daily average of 7 to 8 hours of…

In a bid to harness the skills and economic clout of its diaspora, Togo’s government has developed an inclusive strategy to encourage citizens abroad to carry out projects in the country and participate in economic, social and cultural development. The government recognises that the state cannot fulfil its development ambitions on its own and that the diaspora is important to its efforts for more inclusive governance. In a bid to achieve this, the government has developed a plan involving various projects to harness the skills and financial resources of those in the diaspora. Remittances from the diaspora, which…

Togo: the German legacy Togo’s accession to the modern age of international politics could be said to have begun in July 1884, when the protectorate treaty with Germany was signed In 1883, the German chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, decided to impose a protectorate on the area now known as Togo. Togoville, on the northern shore of Lake Togo in what is now the southern part of the country, came to German attention when Gustav Nachtigal, the German consul general in West Africa signed a protectorate treaty with King Mlapa III of Togoville, on 5 July, 1884. So it was that…

Togo: fear and favour The Gnasssingbé clan has been ruling Togo for more than 50 years.The late Eyadema Gnassingbé to power in January 1967, following what was described as the first coup d’état in black Africa, during which Sylvanus Olympio, the country’s first head of state, was assassinated. With strong military backing, the regime continues to dominate and maintain control over all levels of the country’s highly centralised government. President Faure Gnassingbé, the son of the late Eyadema, says he is trying to modernise the country’s public institutions, including the judiciary. But a 2017 Afrobarometer survey conducted by the Center for Research…

Togo: one-man rule Decades of family rule in this West African country have resulted in very little development Ethnicity has been an important political tool for the family that has ruled Togo for nearly half a century. The current president, Faure Essozimna Gnassingbé, and his ruling Union Pour la République (UNIR) party have consistently privileged their Kabyè ethnic group, a minority, to the detriment of other ethnic groups, including the Ewe, Mina and Kotokoli. The pervasive influence of ethnicity in Togolese politics dates at least as far back as 1960, when Togo attained independence from colonial rule. In 1963 the…

Decades of family rule in Togo country have resulted in very little development

Togo’s health workers: no reason to stay Too many of this West African nation’s doctors and nurses work abroad by Blamé Ekoué Africa is suffering from a major shortage of qualified doctors, nurses and other health workers. In its last global survey of health workers in 2006, the World Health Organisation (WHO) counted 1m doctors, nurses and midwives in 46 African countries, and a reported shortage of more than 800,000 in 36. Sub-Saharan Africa was dealing with 25% of the global disease burden but had only 1.3% of the world’s health workers and less than 1% of the world’s financial…

Togo’s elusive blue gold by Blamé Ekoue In Lomé, the capital of the tiny West African country of Togo, many citizens still fetch water from traditionally built hand-dug wells, water that may not be safe to drink. At Tsevié, a town located some 35 km north, women walk more than five kilometres every morning to fetch water in the nearby Haho river where goats, cows and other animals drink, wash and defecate. Togo, a narrow strip of land, has copious water resources: rainwater, surface water in its three river basins and groundwater reserves. Its renewable freshwater resources (rivers and groundwater…