What are the 9 agricultural sectors with high market and job potential for young Togolese?
It is to this exercise that the World Bank, GIZ, agricultural actors, NGOs got down to business on Thursday.
and the Togolese authorities. The validation workshop for the preliminary study to identify sectors with high
market and employment potential, made it possible to highlight a total of 22 sectors, from the most to the least
promising.
Led by the World Bank, with co-financing from GIZ, this study aims to support Togo,
assess options for the economic inclusion of young people in order to increase their incomes and create new
jobs.
Thus, young Togolese would gain more by embarking on sectors such as pineapple, beekeeping,
aquaculture, shea, sesame, soy, mushrooms, fonio, or vegetables. Comparatively, their
room for maneuver is reduced when it comes to sectors such as cotton , coffee - cocoa , and even
cashew. This, for several reasons stated by the authors of the study. If the cotton is the first
export crop of Togo, the white gold whose harvest, "painful", is done essentially in a
manual, would attract children less, noted the World Bank team. Coffee - Cocoa , _
mainly intended for export, is relegated to the category of the least promising sectors for
young, due to the repetitive fluctuations in world prices.
Although this study is still at the stage of preliminary results, it should eventually serve to identify the
promising value chains and the investment and skills development needs of
actors in order to deal with the issue of youth employment and empowerment, 58% of the
active population. While 40% of the economy or 60% of jobs are based on the agricultural sector, the
half of the population of working age in rural areas was still underemployed in 2017.
"The validation of the results of this study is an opportunity for us to initiate a dialogue with the partners
private and public on the importance of better economic inclusion of young people in agricultural sectors
“, will support Victoire Tomegah Dogbé, Minister in charge of grassroots development, youth and
youth employment.
Same story with Hawa Cissé Wagué, Resident Representative of the World Bank for whom, "
the promotion of promising value chains will contribute to the integration of supply and demand from the
labor in the » agricultural sector which holds « a strong potential for growth and employment in Togo ».
His institution is particularly active in supporting the better economic inclusion of
young people in Togo through the Employment Opportunities Project for Vulnerable Youth (EPV), which it funds
up to 9 billion FCFA.