TRAX Togo

TRAX Africa was originally founded by a group of former students from Silsoe University in the UK who established a small-scale project helping farmers in the Upper East Region of Ghana with practical agricultural technologies. Over the last fourteen years this has evolved in response to the needs of people at the rural community level.

In 1997 it became clear that there was some great demand across the border in Togo for TRAX Africa to pilot a new intervention there. The relatives of farmers in project areas around Bunkpurugu in the East Mamprusi District lived across the border, but shared the same environmental problems. After some years of TRAX Africa working with their relatives in Ghana they had seen the positive impact on their farmlands and how their yields had improved in a sustainable manner. It was this that prompted them to lobby our staff in the area as well as people within smaller Community Based Organisations (CBOs) in their own districts in Togo.

It was this that led to TRAX Africa making links with other CBOs and NGOs in Togo, culminating in a Skillshare Workshop held in Dapaong, Togo in 1998. This brought together NGOs in the region to show them TRAX Africa approaches and techniques, as well as for them to show TRAX Ghana staff their own approaches.

Subsequent to this workshop research was conducted into what kind of role TRAX Africa may have in Togo. In the end it was clear that there was a need to develop the capacities of NGOs working in the region to deal with encroaching desertification and the loss of productive agricultural lands.

To this end TRAX Togo was established in 2000 as a Togolese NGO governed by a Board of Patrons. This consists of an Operations Manager and a two support staff. Their role is to manage a collaboration with three other small NGOs in the region, providing training, logistics and monitoring support. This is all within a programme designed to deliver assistance to the rural poor whilst simultaneously building the capacity of the Partners so that this may continue without TRAX Africa support in the future. The TRAX Togo Programme has been developed with the support of TRAX UK and TRAX Ghana. We remain a close family!

So far the response of the Partners has been excellent, with targets set in the original programme exceeded, e.g. twice the length of stone bunds constructed on farm land (more than 15km of these existed in Togo after only two years of the programme!) and exceeding targets for fuel efficient improved mud stove training and construction in communities by 900%!!!

The take up in Togo has been highly impressive, but this may be seen as a function of the need there. It is important that we continue the commitment we have made with these people and TRAX Togo, so that we can help build a stronger civil society to address issues of development locally by local people themselves.