Togo - Context and Land Governance

^{Forest landscape in Togo, photography by pere ubu (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)}

Although savannah dominates the landscape in the north and south of Togo, fragments of tropical rainforest, dense dry forest and open forest remain along the Atacora.  Since 2009, Togo has enjoyed sustained economic growth (averaging 5% a year), which is among the highest on the African continent. Although the development of the economy has led to a reduction in poverty, inequalities remain significant. In 2021, Togo will rank 162e out of 189 countries on the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Human Development Index. Although the primary sector contributes only 18.5% of GDP, agriculture employs 65% of the active workforce. Phosphates, non-pulverised cement, cotton, soya, coffee and cocoa are among Togo's main exports. The secondary sector accounts for 22.9% of GDP. The economy is mainly based on the tertiary sector (trade, port activities, financial exchanges), which accounts for 58.6% of GDP² . In 2022, the country had a population of 8,095,498, 57% of whom live in rural areas³ . The country is home to some fifty ethnic groups belonging to five main tribes: the Adja-Ewé, the Kabyè-Tem, the Para-Gourma, the Akposso-Akébou and the Ana-Ifé. In the north of the country, conflicts between transhumant herders and farmers are frequent. Problems of a different kind have arisen more recently. The Savanes region, which borders Burkina Faso, is increasingly "confronted with incursions by jihadist groups" responsible for banditry and terrorist attacks. In particular, insecurity is hampering the movement of transhumant herds⁴ .

In terms of land governance, the government has recently brought together the various texts relating to land in a Land and Property Code and is trying to facilitate the formalisation of customary land rights into property titles. At the same time, the government has launched various projects to stimulate agricultural development and improve yields.

Historical background

Togo was colonised by Germany between 1884 and 1914. With the imperial decree of 21 November 1902, the German coloniser introduced the land register (known in German as the Grundbuch) and land titles (Grund Akten). Decrees were issued in 1904, 1910 and 1913 to specify how this was to work. Between 1890 and 1900, the German administration also encouraged the development of cocoa, coffee and oil palm crops in south-west Togo.

At the end of the First World War, Germany lost its colonies, including Togo. The western part of German Togo reverted to Great Britain (which attached it to its Gold Coast colony, now Ghana), while the French administered the eastern part of the country, corresponding to present-day Togo, under a mandate from the League of Nations⁵ .

The decree of 23 December 1922 introduced the land registry system, by virtue of the decree of 24 July 1906, which had introduced the registration system in the other colonies of French West Africa. In addition, the French continued to develop the plantation economy, forcing the peasantry, who had mainly been engaged in subsistence farming, to devote themselves to it. After the Second World War, coffee and cocoa cultivation underwent a "real boom, spurred on by a generalised policy of high purchase prices" and led to a migratory movement towards the south-west region⁶ .

The German and French colonial administrations saw the south as the only economically viable part of Togo and tended to regard the north as a mere reservoir of labour for forced labour. This view artificially accentuated the ethnic divisions between north and south, which were maintained if not reinforced after the country's independence on 27 April 1960⁷ .

After seizing power in a coup in 1967, Étienne Eyadéma Gnassingbé, known as Gnassingbé Eyadéma, ruled the country for almost 40 years. When he died in 2005, his son Faure Gnassingbé became president. He is currently serving his fourth term. The introduction of multi-party elections in the 1990s did not fundamentally alter the authoritarian tendencies of the ruling regime⁸ .

Land legislation and regulations

Although land legislation is still tainted by the colonial legacy, a particular feature of the Togolese system is the recognition of customary rights.

Indeed, German colonisation did not last long enough for the registration system to be implemented in the interior of the country. Subsequently, the League of Nations required the French to "take into consideration indigenous laws and customs", at a time when French doctrine was evolving to also advocate respect for traditional ownership. The decree of 24 August 1926 instituted a method of recording "indigenous" land rights in Togo, enabling customary ownership to be recorded in a land register⁹ .

After independence, the post-colonial government promulgated the law of 5 August 1960, supplemented by the law of 11 January 1961, with the aim of protecting the land ownership of Togolese citizens.

In 1974, the government carried out a reform to optimise the use of fertile land with the creation of a national estate. Ordinance no.o 12 on agrifonial reform recognised customary rights which, having the same value as land titles, conferred a right of ownership. At the same time, the reform restricts the scope of these customary rights by introducing a presumption of ownership of uncultivated land. Thus, only land that is "effectively occupied or necessary for fallow land and population growth" is recognised. Owners of "uncultivated" land were given five years from the date of publication of the ordinance to develop it, failing which the land was transferred to the national land registry. Under the reform, land that has not been cultivated for ten consecutive years is also "considered uncultivated and therefore not eligible for title". The law provides for compensation only in cases of expropriation in the public interest¹⁰ .

^{Trees in flower in the Togolese savannah, photograph by Guido and Carrara family (CC BY 2.0)}

The State manages the national domain as a collective asset. To "enable farmers who are not landowners to gain access to land", Togo has been setting up planned agricultural development zones (ZAAP) since 1974. In recent years, there has been renewed interest in creating these areas. In 2021-2022, the government has added 130 new ZAAPs to the 36 that already existed, covering a total area of 12,608 ha¹¹ . These ZAAPs, each covering around 100 ha, are equipped with irrigation systems, drainage networks, access tracks and other infrastructure.

Togo has strengthened its land policy by reviewing its legislation to secure land rights in a context of legal dualism. Law No.o 2018-005 of 14 June 2018 on the Land and Property Code brings together in a single corpus all the legislation on land issues dating back to colonial times. The new code reaffirms registration as the best way to certify private property. However, it does not abolish customary rights, which it allows to be established and recorded in the land register. Although the Code does not make any major changes to existing legislation, the law nevertheless provides for the adoption of at least 28 decrees to implement the regulatory framework¹² . The Code also establishes the Interministerial Commission for Land and Domain Reform (CIRFD) and the National Land and Domain Agency (ANDF). To simplify administrative practices and reduce registration times, in 2019 the State will create a single land office and appoint a land registrar in each of the country's five regions.

As mentioned, the Togolese government is not seeking to extinguish customary rights, but rather to formalise them through registration. Despite the efforts made and the simplification of administrative procedures, access to land titles remains low. As of January 2019, only 46,183 land titles had been granted since colonial times, although digitisation was "virtually complete, with a rate of 99%"¹³ .

Land tenure system

According to Article 1 of Order no. 12 of 6 February 1974, Togo's land tenure system is divided into three categories: "1) land held by customary communities and individuals on the basis of a land title or under customary law [...]; 2) land constituting the public domain and the private domain of the State and local communities; 3) the national land domain made up of all other land that cannot be classified in either of the categories listed above". This last category refers to "land virtually abandoned to fallow", which the State sought to recover in order to become the owner and redistribute it to those who could develop it "according to the principles of modern agronomy"¹⁴ . The 2018 Land and Property Code adopts these categories, while specifying that the national land estate "may no longer incorporate any new buildings"¹⁵ . 

Trends in land use

Togo is experiencing a high rate of agricultural expansion (6.4% on average per year), one of the highest in West Africa. As a result, cultivated land has increased from 10% of the country in 1975 to 34% in 2013. The expansion of agricultural areas has taken place at the expense of savannahs and forests, including protected areas where agriculture is in principle prohibited. The size of Togo's forests has halved, even though they represented just 5.9% of the country in 1975¹⁶ . The current forest area is 1,209,270 ha¹⁷ . It is estimated that Togo loses 3,700 ha of forest annually¹⁸ . Protected areas taken as a whole cover 792,345 hectares, but their forest cover is only 10.2%¹⁹ .

Climate change is leading to changes in crop production. In some parts of the country, coffee, cocoa and pearl millet can no longer be grown because of changing natural conditions. Other crops are gaining in popularity, such as soya, cashew nuts and maize²⁰ . In northern Togo, the growth in livestock numbers combined with the shrinking of pastoral areas is leading to conflicts over access to water and fodder²¹ .

^{Rural scene, photograph by David Bacon (CC BY 2.0)}

In addition, the extraction of phosphate in open-cast mines since the 1970s has degraded thousands of hectares of land, which is little rehabilitated after exploitation. The phosphate industry destroys vegetation and creates landscapes of artificial hills. This denuded soil, dotted with piles of mine tailings, is unsuitable for agriculture²² .

Investments and land acquisitions

Plantation development in the coastal zone has progressed rapidly in recent decades, "reaching a total area of almost 200 km2 in 2013"²³ . However, plantation agriculture is still dominated by smallholders.

According to some estimates, only 84 cases of large-scale land acquisitions took place in Togo between 2000 and 2011. These transactions covered a cumulative area of 7,707 ha, mostly in the agro-industrial sector. Most of the sellers were farmers, while the buyers were mainly senior Togolese executives or businessmen²⁴ . Other sources report 53 cases of land acquisitions on 25,000 ha²⁵ .

Despite their imprecise nature, these figures indicate that large-scale land acquisitions remain a marginal phenomenon in Togo. Rather than targeting the arrival of foreign investors to cultivate land, the government is encouraging the modernisation of family farms through various initiatives. One of these is the establishment of the Mechanism to Encourage Agricultural Financing Based on Risk Sharing (Mifa) to improve access to credit for family farmers.

Another initiative concerns the arrival of the Singaporean group Olam to revitalise cotton production and reorganise the sector. As part of a public-private partnership, in 2021 Olam acquired a 51% stake in the Nouvelle Société Cotonnière du Togo (NSCT), which is responsible for overseeing the production, processing and marketing of cotton, replacing the former state company Société Togolaise de Coton (Sotoco)²⁶ .

The government has also set up the Plateforme Industrielle d'Adétikopé (PIA) to increase local processing, particularly of agricultural products such as cotton, cashew nuts, soya, rice and sesame. The first phase of this industrial estate covers 129 ha, but it is planned to extend to 400 ha. Arise IIP, owned by Olam International and Africa Finance Corporation (AFC), financed the development of the site²⁷ .

^{Kara region, Togo, photography by Panoramas (CC BY-ND 2.0)}

Finally, as part of Togo's Agrifood Transformation Programme, the Kara Agropole was launched in 2018. This agropole, one of ten planned, aims to create planned agricultural development zones (ZAAP), build infrastructure and provide agricultural training²⁸ . Under the latest project, the government intends to promote mango cultivation on 700 ha spread across various ZAAPs²⁹ .

Despite these efforts, difficulties remain. Despite Olam's recent acquisition of a stake in NSCT, cotton production has fallen by 66% between 2019 and 2023³⁰ . Furthermore, large-scale State projects sometimes lead to the expropriation of landowners who consider the acquisition process or compensation unfair, as in the case of the Adétikopé Industrial Platform³¹ or the Djagblé Plain Rural Development Project³² .

Customary land rights

In Togo, under customary law, the first occupants of a site administer the land and land is appropriated through the family or lineage. However, with the development of cash crops during the colonial era in south-west Togo, particularly in the Ewe, Akposso and Akébou countries, different land tenure arrangements to enable migrants to access land emerged and then evolved according to circumstances. These arrangements take the form of a relationship of dependence between native customary landowners who lend land to new arrivals from Kabyè and Nawdeba.

A first category of contracts is called dibi-madibi, an expression from the Twi language in Ghana which means "you eat a little, I eat a little". There are various variants of this contract, which mainly concerns cocoa, coffee and palm plantations. Broadly speaking, it is an agreement between a landowner who entrusts the development of a plot of land to a farmer, who shares the fruits of the harvest with the landowner in varying proportions. In some cases, the object of the sharing concerns the trees or the land planted at the end of the contract³³ .

Conflicts are on the increase as the dibi-madibi arrangements are called into question by the descendants of the landowners. Disputes are particularly frequent when the original contract provided for the transfer of ownership of half the cultivated plot to the farmer, rather than the division of crops or trees. The descendants often reclaim their ancestors' land, which has been developed for decades by non-native planters, or reinterpret the terms of the contract to make it more advantageous to them.

With the increase in land disputes and the scarcity of land, the dibi-madibi has been transformed to avoid the permanent transfer of land outside the lineage. The role of migrant farmers is no longer to create new plantations, but rather "to maintain and harvest an existing orchard, in return for a share of the production"³⁴ . Ewe nana contracts are also on the increase. These do not concern plantation crops, but only food crops. One form of nana is similar to a temporary gift from the owner, in return for which the farmer offers occasional gifts.

Although they do not own the land, customary chiefs continue to play an important role in resolving land disputes. In addition to disputes between natives and migrants, there are many cases of fraud and double sales. As many land contracts are concluded orally, customary chiefs are called upon to settle these disputes. Settling land disputes is an opportunity for chiefs to consolidate their legitimacy³⁵ . To limit these conflicts and secure the land, the country recently launched a nationwide land census³⁶ .

Women's land rights

In Togo, land is mainly transferred through patrilineal descent, thus excluding women from owning and inheriting land. In some cases, however, men who do not have enough land can cultivate a plot in their wife's family through the institution of kolonyigba. This practice, which dates back to colonial times, also enables children to inherit land obtained on the mother's side³⁷ .

On the whole, it is easier for Togolese women to gain access to land through loans, gifts or purchases than through customary law³⁸ , but even bequest practices seem to be changing. It is becoming increasingly common for men who have given up farming as part of an upward mobility trajectory to cede part of their land to their daughters. Customary chiefs generally guarantee women's rights, despite attempts by other members of the lineage to reclaim the land³⁹ .

In addition, cash crops since colonial times have enabled women to achieve a degree of financial autonomy through remuneration for their work on their husbands' plantations or the trade in cocoa beans in border regions. The emancipatory effect of the cash economy remains limited, however, as it often contributed to increasing the working time that women, deprived of the support of their husbands, devoted to growing food crops. Other more recent developments are increasing women's ability to acquire land. Whereas dibi-madibi contracts were mainly between men (plantation crops were generally managed by men), nana arrangements now allow women access to land in exchange for their labour. Other women even have the financial means to buy large plots of land⁴⁰ .

According to the latest available data, the majority (82.3%) of Togolese farming households are headed by men. Only 17.7% of farm households are headed by women. Male heads of household have an average of 4.35 ha of land, while their female counterparts have 2.19 ha⁴¹ . Nevertheless, Togo has a relatively good record when it comes to women's formal access to property. The 2018 land and property code establishes gender equality in access to land as a principle. Between 2018 and 2022, women obtained 6,898 land titles, or 37% of the total of 25,960 titles granted over the period, while titles granted to spouses amounted to 412, or 1.6%⁴² .

What's more, unlike men, women farmers living in urban and peri-urban areas see urbanisation as an opportunity. While a majority of men see urban expansion as a threat and are more inclined to sell their land, women are holding on to their farmland while changing their practices to meet the demands of urban consumers. To do this, they are moving away from plantation farming to market gardening, which also enables yields to be intensified. Women therefore benefit from urbanisation because of their ability to adapt to it⁴³ .

In short, commercial farming, the commodification of land and the ease with which land titles can be obtained are giving women the opportunity to free themselves increasingly from the customary practices that limited their access to land.

Land tenure systems in urban areas

Togo's population is heavily concentrated in the south of the country. The Maritime region, one of Togo's five administrative regions and home to the capital Lomé, is home to 44.7% of the population on just one tenth of the national territory. Greater Lomé, comprising the capital and its suburbs, has an estimated population of over 2 million, or 27% of the population⁴⁴ .

Unlike other African cities, residents of Lomé gained access to land ownership very early on. Up until 1914, the Germans held only around 30 of the 513 land titles granted, with the remainder belonging to Togolese people⁴⁵ . Today, however, access to property remains limited due to the complexity and cost of registration. The market is also characterised by "a high level of land tenure insecurity, including for duly registered land titles"⁴⁶ . In 2016, 75% of cases at the Lomé Court of First Instance concerned land⁴⁷ .

These conflicts have various causes. Originally, the German and French colonial administrations granted land titles to customary chiefs as representatives of their communities. These very large plots of land, sometimes covering hundreds of hectares, belonged to the community, but have since been the subject of numerous transactions and divisions under opaque conditions that often flout the rights of those entitled to them⁴⁸ . As in rural areas, the oral nature of many transfers is also a source of conflict, especially when the witnesses have died and the descendants dispute the legitimacy of the tenancies or land arrangements.

Nevertheless, informal rules developed over time help to establish a certain order in land transactions. The Togolese recognise the "three-stamp certificate" as an administrative document guaranteeing their occupation. "The document is a plot plan that has been stamped by 3 institutions: (i) the chartered surveyor who drew up the plan, (ii) the town planning department if the land is in an urban area, or the Direction de l'Aménagement, de l'Équipement et de la Mécanisation Agricole (DAEMA, commonly known as Agro foncier) if the land is in a rural area, and (iii) the land registry department. More than 20,000 such documents are issued each year. However, they do not include geo-referencing of the plots concerned and are not systematically archived⁴⁹ .

^{Lomé, photograph by EITI (CC BY-SA 2.0)}

The city of Lomé has an Urban Development Master Plan dating back to 1981. A new version of this document has recently been drawn up and is due to be approved by the relevant authorities. This plan should enable better planning of subdivision operations, in a context where the land market is characterised by an "overproduction" of plots caused by the massive sale of land by customary owners. However, the speculative practice of buying and reselling land quickly in order to make a profit is not widespread in Lomé, not least because of the importance attached by the Togolese to owning what they call their "home", i.e. their personal house.

Nevertheless, the overabundance of housing estates has resulted in a low rate of land occupation and a high level of urban sprawl. In less than three decades, the urbanised area of the Maritime region has quadrupled, rising from 9,580 ha in 1986 to 39,131 ha in 2014. Lomé alone covers 29,301 ha. The public authorities are unable to keep pace with urban growth in terms of the provision of infrastructure and services, especially in the more remote areas, which are sparsely populated (with an average population density of 69 inhabitants/ha, falling as low as 12 inhabitants/ha in some places)⁵⁰ .

Urbanisation takes place mainly through the conversion of agricultural land into residential areas. Between 1975 and 2013, the surface area covered by towns and villages in Togo increased by 176%⁵¹ . Urbanisation and infrastructure construction are leading to a decline in the area devoted to peri-urban market gardening, particularly in Lomé. Between 2002 and 2014, agricultural land in Lomé fell from 530 ha to 160 ha, an average annual reduction of 31 ha. This situation is attributable to the insecurity of land tenure for market gardeners, most of whom do not own the land they farm and are therefore forced to move when the owner or the State wishes to take it over⁵² .

Land innovations

Since 2010, Togo has been committed to the REDD+ process to sustainably manage the remaining forests and increase forest cover. To achieve this, in 2021 the Togolese government launched the second phase of its ambitious reforestation policy, which aims to increase forest cover to 26%. The aim is to plant a billion new trees by 2030, at a rate of 100 million a year. By 2023, the government expects to have planted 15 million trees on 136,000 ha⁵³ . A total of 1,915,204 seedlings had been planted as of 1er June 2023, representing an increase of 35% on the previous year⁵⁴ , although the target was not achieved.

Land tenure timeline

1884: Germany colonises Togo.

1902: The German administration introduces the land register and land titles.

1914: The German Togo is divided between France and Great Britain. 

1922: The French agent administration confirmed the option of registering land in the land register. 

1926: The introduction of the recording of "indigenous" land rights in Togo enabled customary ownership to be recorded in a land register. 

1960: Togo gains its independence. The post-colonial government promulgates the law of 5 August 1960, supplemented by the law of 11 January 1961, with the aim of protecting the land ownership of Togolese citizens.

1974: The government carries out an agri-land reform with the aim of maximising land development.  

2010: Togo joins the REDD+ process to manage its forests sustainably.
2018: Togo adopts a new land code bringing together in a single corpus the various legal texts on land governance.

2021 : The country launches annual reforestation campaigns aimed at achieving 26% forest cover. 

Where to go next?

The author's suggestions for further reading I recommend this report produced by the World Bank. As well as providing an overview of Togolese customary land legislation and practices, the document discusses in depth the particularities of the urban land market in Togo. To find out more about dibi-madibi and the changing patterns of access to land, I suggest reading the articles by Padabô Kadouza, Marco Gardini and Koffi Amouzou Sossou together. Finally, this short video gives an idea of the reforestation initiative being put in place by the government in 2021.

References

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[2] Bertelsmann Stiftung. 2022. BTI 2022 Country Report - Togo. Gütersloh. URL: https://landportal.org/library/resources/bti-2022-country-report-%E2%80%94-togo. French Treasury. 2023. Economic and financial situation of TOGO. 2 February. URL: https://www.tresor.economie.gouv.fr/Pays/TG/conjoncture#:~:text...e&text=With%20a%20GDP%20in%202021,the%27order%20of%20850%20EUR. World Bank Group. 2019. Urban and peri-urban land sector review. Putting the land market at the service of efficient and inclusive development in Greater Lomé. URL: https://landportal.org/library/resources/revue-du-secteur-foncier-en-milieu-urbain-et-p%C3%A9ri-urbain-mettre-le-march%C3%A9-foncier.

[3] Institut National de la Statistique et des Etudes Economiques et Démographiques (INSEED). 2023. Final results of the RGPH-5 of November 2022. URL: https://www.togofirst.com/images/2023/RECENSEMENT_RESULTATS_.pdf.

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[9] World Bank Group. 2019. Urban and peri-urban land sector review. Putting the land market at the service of efficient and inclusive development in Greater Lomé. URL: https://landportal.org/library/resources/revue-du-secteur-foncier-en-milieu-urbain-et-p%C3%A9ri-urbain-mettre-le-march%C3%A9-foncier. Rochegude, Alain and Caroline Plançon. 2009. "Fiche pays Togo". In Décentralisation, foncier et acteurs locaux. Land Tenure and Development Technical Committee. URL: https://landportal.org/library/resources/fiche-pays.

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[19] Yao, Mawouéna Apla et al. 2020. Global Forest Resources Assessment 2020 - Togo Report. Rome: FAO. URL: https://landportal.org/node/116634.

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