Some countries in the Sahel and Nigeria have been badly shaken in recent years by attacks
terrorists. According to the UN, jihadist attacks in Mali, Niger and Burkina left 4,000 dead in 2019.
Under-equipped and badly trained, the police forces of certain countries are unable to stem the spiral of
jihadist violence. Last Monday, 36 civilians were killed in an attack on villages in northern
Burkina Faso.
But how does Togo cooperate with neighboring countries to stem the phenomenon?
"We have good cooperation with the neighbors, which we must deepen and enrich", underlined
President Faure Gnassingbé in an interview given to three media including Agence Savoir News on 17
January, the day before the Lomé summit on the fight against counterfeit medicines.
"We have the Accra initiative, which brings together four countries: Benin, Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Togo, to which
joining Niger and Mali. Police and gendarmerie officials meet and exchange
information, ministries also cooperate," he said.
Nowadays, the trafficking of counterfeit medicines feeds large terrorist networks. $75 billion
US in 2010, the turnover of trafficking in falsified medical products is estimated at 200 billion dollars
in 2014, almost tripled in four years. The profits derived from this traffic are greater than those from drugs
or weapons. On the ground, the terrorist threat persists.
"Anything that strengthens terrorist networks, in particular through financial means (arms trafficking,
drugs …) weakens our States and threatens our security. Before, we mainly knew the trafficking of
drugs, weapons, today the traffic in substandard and falsified medical products which is much
more powerful in financial terms, is added and further complicates our task. No more terrorists
get stronger, the harder the fight for the States, ”noted Faure Gnassingbé.
The future of the F.CFA was also discussed during this interview with President Togo.
Nigeria and several West African countries, particularly English-speaking ones, denounced on January 16
in Abuja the decision to replace the CFA franc with the ECO, claiming that it was "not in conformity" with the
program recently adopted by the entire region to establish a single currency.
The six countries of the West African Monetary Zone (WAMZ) “noted with concern the declaration
aimed at unilaterally renaming the CFA franc to ECO by 2020".
The WAMZ is made up of Nigeria, Ghana, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Gambia and Guinea
(Conakry), which is not part of the CFA zone.
For these countries, "this action is not in accordance with the decisions" of the Economic Community of States
of West Africa (ECOWAS) with a view to "adopting the ECO as the name of the single currency" of any
the region, the idea of which has been debated for almost 30 years.
On this subject, “we must avoid misunderstandings and amalgams”, underlined President Faure Gnassingbé.

“There is a previous project: the ECOWAS single currency project. This is a project that dates back 20
years and which consisted in creating two monetary zones, and then merging them. This method has been abandoned.
We have now decided to speed things up to go to the ECO and a date has been set: 2020,” he said.
Explain.
Thus, he continued, those who meet the criteria could launch the single currency: ECO.
“On this, there is a problem with the CFA which needs to reform. It was this coincidence that was
used, but these are two problems that are normally separated, ”corrected Faure Gnassingbé.
“WAEMU countries that meet the criteria when the time comes, will move to the ECO. The countries
English speakers, if they are there, will also switch to ECO. I don't think there is a contradiction or a
conflict. The ECO has criteria that have been defined together. The difference with the F.CFA is the reference to the
currency basket and flexible exchange rate. If we move to ECO, we will adopt the criteria of
the ECO,” he added.