BOAD Approves Loan For Togo Emergency Programme
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The West African Development Bank (BOAD) has approved a CFA franc 30 billion (US$50.1 million) loan for the partial funding of the Emergency Resilience Building Programme in the Savannah Region (PURS) in northern Togo.
The BOAD loan will support the development of 125km of rural roads to open up localities in the Savanes region and the construction of basic infrastructure in the targeted localities, including extending electricity grids, equipping 302 boreholes with solar-powered pumping systems and establishing equipped warehouses. The funds will also help to strengthen basic social services such as healthcare, education, territorial administration and security.
The PURS plan was adopted in early 2022 in response to increasing terrorist attacks in Togo’s north since November 2021. It aims to address internal fragility and to prevent further insecurity spilling over from the Sahel region.
In particular, plan entails rehabilitating rural roads, building competitive, low-cost road transport system for people and goods and promoting the development of the northern regions through access to markets and surrounding regions.
The project is divided into two phases distributed across eight prefectures in the Savanes and Kara regions, namely Cinkasse, Tone, Kpendjal, Kpendjal Ouest, Oti, Oti-Sud, Tandjoare and Keran.
Phase 1 involves emergency or immediate works and covers around 500km of rural roads that require opening, construction and maintenance operations as well as rehabilitation and elimination of critical points.
Phase 2 involves short and medium-term work and involves around 700km of rural roads requiring the same type of work as in phase 1 and including the construction of 10 large bridges between 30 to 300 metres in length.
In late November, the Togolese government said it was expanding the scope of PURS to cover the entire country, particularly areas affected or threatened by terrorism.
In April, the government began the official handover of sites and launched construction work on healthcare facilities in the Savanes region as part of PURS. In total, 16 peripheral care units (dispensaries) are planned to be built in the seven prefectures of the region.
The facilities will each have a central care building including a medical department and a maternity ward, as well as related buildings. The work is set to last six months and cost a total of nearly CFA franc 2 billion (US$3.3 million).
In February, the Togolese government announced that CFA franc 50 billion (US$83.5 million) had been committed after one year of implementation of the PURS, with the following results:
15-20% improvement in the rural road network, essential for opening up the region and the improving the flow of goods;
80,000 new beneficiaries connected to the drinking water supply, increasing the service rate in rural areas from 64% in 2021 to 73.5% in 2022;
15,000 additional rural households electrified, increasing the rate from 22% in 2021 to 27% in 2022;
More than 1,000 hectares of lowlands developed over the period and more than 21,000 tonnes of food fertiliser distributed to producers.
In November 2022, the EU and Germany announced a financial allocation of €11.5 million (US$12.6 million) for the electrification component of PURS.
Photo: Construction in Togo (Source: Togo government)
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