TOGO: AFD-supports youths recycling waste into art objects in Lomé

Faced with 350 000 tons of household waste produced each year in Lomé, a project financed by the French Development Agency (AFD) is reconciling art and sanitation in Togo's largest city.

The fourth phase of the Lomé Urban Environment Project (PEUL IV) is continuing in Togo with a particular focus on sanitation. Nearly 80 young artists from the Togolese capital have transformed plastic waste into art objects (paintings, musical instruments, sculptures). The initiative is financed by the French Development Agency (AFD).

It is through the Métis Fund that it created in 2021 to “raise awareness of respect for the environment and encourage a citizen dynamic of cleanliness” against the backdrop of promoting the cultural varieties of the beneficiary countries. It is within this framework that several teenagers from the Togolese councils of Golfe 1 and Agoè-Nyiévé 4 have benefited from practical workshops on the collection and recycling of rubbish littering the streets.

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This initiative is being implemented with the participation of Togolese civil society associations, notably Jeunesse Wara Sporting Club, Amis du futur, Cercle d’aide femme-enfant, and Passion football club. According to Bossa Makagni-Amelete, the Director of Strategic Planning and Urbanism of the Greater Lomé Autonomous District (DAGL), the aim is to strengthen the sanitation policy in this urban area, which has 2 million inhabitants, i.e. a quarter of the population of Togo.

Similar initiatives are underway in this West African country to combat waste pollution. One example is the pan-African Africompost project, which received 200 000 euros in funding from AFD in the second half of 2022. Its implementation should enable the installation of composting units for the sale of compost to farmers.