Togo - Digital Acceleration Project : Additional Financing

Overview & Synopsis

The development objective of the Togo Digital Acceleration Project for Togo is to expand access to affordable and climate-resilient broadband connectivity, enhance digital skills, and digital entrepreneurship. The additional financing is provided to address a cost overrun under the connectivity component without changing the development objective, scope, or closing date, and is necessitated by adoption of a fully fiber-optic solution in place of a mixed-technology approach, inclusion of value-added tax at twenty percent, incorporation of rated-criteria commitments such as accelerated deployment, enhanced quality of service, and local employment, and input-cost movements since appraisal; it ensures contracts can be awarded as designed, prevents delays or reductions in investment scope, and preserves nationwide coherence and private co-investment commitments. The Bank will focus near-term resources on connectivity by financing backbone densification and last-mile fiber-optic links to public facilities in rural, peri-urban, and urban areas, including schools, health centers, and local administrations, with works managed through strengthened supervision and milestone-based disbursements; procurement for digital skills, innovation, entrepreneurship, and enabling-environment activities will continue, with contract awards sequenced to future financing and satisfactory implementation of connectivity. The project intends to deliver climate-resilient digital infrastructure and improved affordability, connect priority public institutions to high-capacity networks that enable services such as telemedicine, online learning, and digital public administration, catalyze private capital through operator fiber-to-the-home extensions and mobile network upgrades, and reduce the cost of broadband baskets over time. Implementation will maintain moderate environmental and social risk management consistent with the parent project through existing instruments, including the Environmental and Social Management Framework, Resettlement Framework, Security Management Plan, Labor Management Procedures, and an updated Environmental and Social Commitment Plan; it will address occupational and community health and safety, land and traffic management, and risks of sexual exploitation and abuse or sexual harassment, and will sequence works to reflect security conditions in northern regions, using remote or third-party monitoring as needed. The project also supports a climate-smart digital infrastructure strategy and an extended producer responsibility program for e-waste to lower emissions and manage lifecycle impacts. Results will be monitored through indicators on people newly using broadband, reductions in broadband cost as a share of gross national income per capita, the share of infrastructure built or upgraded to be resilient to climate-related shocks, public institutions connected, and, as additional financing becomes available, outcomes on digital skills, enterprise incubation, and reforms such as cloud strategy, e-waste policy, and a modernized digital code.