The World Bank has signed a financing agreement with the government of Togo. The financial institution is lending $100 million for the implementation of the Urban Water Security Project in Togo (TUWS).
A financing agreement was signed recently in Washington in the United States of America between Coralie Gevers, the World Bank’s Director of Operations for Togo, Benin, Ivory Coast and Guinea, and the Togolese Minister of the Economy and Finance, Sani Yaya. The group, through its subsidiary the International Development Association (IDA), will grant a loan of 100 million dollars for the implementation of the Urban Water Security Project in Togo (TUWS), which will soon be launched in the West African country.
According to the Togolese authorities, the IDA loan will finance the five components of TUWS. The first component will improve access to drinking water supply services in Greater Lomé through the construction and rehabilitation of water production and treatment systems (boreholes, pumping and potabilisation stations), the construction and rehabilitation of water storage facilities, the rehabilitation, replacement and extension of water transport and distribution systems, and the supervision of works.
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“The IDA funding will also be used to create six stand-alone water supply systems in the outlying areas of Lomé, such as Sanguéra, Apéssito, Kohé, Adéticopé Est, Dévégo and Togblékopé, providing a total of 157,000 people with piped water services. New elevated reservoirs, with a total capacity of 5,000 m3, will increase the storage capacity of the Togolese city,” says the Togolese Ministry of Water and Village Hydraulics. The tanks will be supplied by the Cacavéli drinking water station.
Construction of sewage sludge plants
The second component of the TUWS will strengthen the operational efficiency and capacity of the Togolaise des Eaux (TdE), focusing on reducing water losses and strengthening customer relations.
In its third component, the project will focus on improving access to water, sanitation and hygiene facilities for schools and health centres in Greater Lomé, including awareness-raising campaigns on water, sanitation and hygiene. This component of the project will also improve the management of faecal sludge through the construction of dedicated plants, thereby reducing the potential impacts of health threats from waterborne diseases on vulnerable people such as children and hospital patients.
Sustainable water management
The government of Togo also wants to fill the gaps in water resource management in Greater Lomé, especially underground. But also to strengthen decision-making capacity. This will be done through the implementation of hydrological studies of coastal sedimentary aquifers to inform the development of groundwater abstraction and sustainable management plans, the development of a geographic information system, a database and a data collection system on surface water and groundwater resources. TUWS also foresees the establishment and rehabilitation, on an interim basis, of 45 hydrological and 25 piezometric monitoring stations, including the provision of monitoring equipment, as well as the training of staff of the Togolese Ministry of Water and Village Hydraulics and other relevant authorities to collect, analyse and publish information on water resources.
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Efforts to protect the quality of groundwater resources from human-induced and flood-related contamination will also be strengthened. In addition to the districts of Adétikopé, Togblékopé, Kohé, Sanguéra, Dévego, Apessito, the localities of Goumoukopé and Djagblé, the schools and health centres of Greater Lomé, the local authorities and economic operators will also be impacted by the Urban Water Security Project in Togo.
Inès Magoum
