·¬ÇÑÉçÇø

·¬ÇÑÉçÇø the Project

In Togo, agriculture employs two-thirds of the population and accounts for about 41% of the GDP. Yields have been consistently low for food crops and the performance of the main export crops (cotton, coffee, and cocoa) has been deteriorating. Meat and fish production is also low and the country relies on imports to make up for its food deficit. Rural infrastructure is scarce, poorly maintained, and a major constraint to growth. Key challenges also include weak institutional capacities, insufficient coordination, and weak service delivery due to a deteriorated business climate. An assessment by the WFP showed that coping strategies included adults reducing their daily food intake in favor of children, downgrading the nutritional quality of the main meal, eating seeds stocked for the next season, and selling livestock.

Togo’s Agriculture Sector Support Project (PASA) invested $19 million to rehabilitate and reinforce productive capacities across selected value chains and fostered an enabling institutional environment for agriculture sector development. The project supported the Government’s National Agriculture and Food Security Investment Program, which aimed to improve strategic food crops, export crops, and freshwater fish. Through the provision of support for capacity building and coordination, the project enabled the institutional set-up for sound agricultural investments. The projects supported the following activities: the marketing of rice and maize and traditional export crops like cotton, coffee, and cocoa; freshwater fish farming by facilitating access to production technologies, training, critical inputs, land security, and financial resources from local banks; and capacity building of the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, and Fisheries to manage the implementation of its national investment plan and to rehabilitate the productive capacity of strategic food and export crops as well as freshwater fish production.