In Togo, cities are increasingly facing waste management problems leading to environmental degradation and exposing residents to major health risks. With the 2019 law on decentralisation, responsibility for waste management operations was transferred to municipalities, which are now at the front line of actions to be taken to address these challenges.
In order to support municipalities to implement effective waste and sanitation management services in line with the population’s expectations, the EU-funded Gedec project was launched. The Gedec Togo team, coordinated by Expertise France, is working with GRET for the technical assistance component, and with Entrepreneurs du monde for strengthening of private stakeholders. The project is being rolled out in Togo’s five main regional towns: Atakpamé (Ogou 1), Dapaong (Tône 1), Kara (Kozah 1), Sokodé (Tchaoudjo 1) and Tsévié (Zio 1).
In 2015, significant infrastructure – transfer sites, landfill centres, sludge treatment plants, etc. – were funded by the European Union as part of the Water and Sanitation projects (PEAT).
In order to valorise these investments and make them sustainable, the Gedec teams are now supporting municipalities to develop and implement a strategy to define and deploy services that are suited to populations’ needs. The project will also work on making municipal teams autonomous to develop solid and liquid sanitation management services.
A realistic, context-appropriate waste and sanitation management value chain is organised in each of the main regional towns targeted by the action for:
