Resource information
This review concludes that for
Togo's urban and peri-urban areas to sustainably grow,
issues of urban governance and development need to be
approached in a comprehensive manner, driven by well -guided
policies developed in partnership with the people to support
Sub-National Government Authorities and Entities(SGAs) in
carrying out their functions efficiently. To meet evolving
challenges of urbanization and decentralization, the
Government of Togo (GoT) must rationalize the roles of
various levels of government and agencies and limit their
numbers to limit duplication, strengthen the capacities of
relevant sector institutions and coordinate institutional
actions and investments. It is further recommended that GoT
must (i) clarify the roles and functions of national,
prefectural, and local governments while ensuring that
coordination functions between them work well; (ii) separate
urban policy and regulatory functions from implementation of
urban projects by allocating implementation responsibilities
to private operators or qualified state agencies under
performance-based arrangements; (iii) ensure proper
allocation of taxing responsibilities, develop and implement
transfer of financial resources from the central government
to the local governments on a transparent basis supported by
simple and precise criteria; and (iv) strengthen the central
government s role in policy, regulatory, coordination,
oversight and supervision. Contractualization of
relationships between different tiers of government and
benchmarking of performance must be prominent among the
guiding principles that should govern the delivery of
responsibilities of GoT, SGAs and their agencies. Finally,
this necessary, first step stock-taking review of Togo s
urban and peri-urban sector has revealed knowledge &
data gaps that need to be filled through further analysis
and studies on (a) infrastructure services provision needs
as well as capacity to implement, operate and maintain them,
(b) improving the functioning of the urban land market and
shelter-related issues, (c) strengthening municipal
financing, (d) developing city and local economic
development strategies (CDS & LED), and (e)
socio-economic and technical approaches to financing of slum upgrading.
