Togo

Togo enters 2026 as one of West Africa's faster-growing economies, with real GDP expanding an estimated 6.3% in 2025 — above World Bank (5.0%) and IMF (5.3%) forecasts — lifting nominal GDP to around CFA 6,919 billion (US$12.28 billion). Growth was led by services, with transport and warehousing up 16.2% as the Port of Lomé deepened its regional role, alongside stronger agriculture (cashews, soybeans) and manganese mining. Inflation is exceptionally low for the region, easing to 2.6% in April 2025, helped by the BCEAO's June 2025 rate cut to 3.25%.

The distinctiveness is logistics. The Port of Lomé is West Africa's largest and the region's leading deep-water transshipment hub — 16.6m+ draught (deepened toward 18.6m), up to 2.7m TEU capacity, operated by MSC's Terminal Investment Limited and able to receive 24,000-TEU vessels. It handled 30.6 million tonnes in 2024, including ~20.2 million tonnes of transshipment, serving landlocked Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso. Combined with phosphate reserves among the world's largest, cotton, and an IMF Extended Credit Facility (signed March 2024, ~US$390m over 42 months), Togo positions itself as a corridor economy.

The defining risk is political and governance concentration. The May 2024 constitution moved Togo from a presidential to a parliamentary system; in May 2025 Faure Gnassingbé — whose family has ruled for nearly six decades — took the oath as President of the Council of Ministers, now the highest executive office, holding indefinitely renewable terms. Opposition and analysts warn this circumvents term limits and entrenches power, raising governance, succession and Sahel-spillover security risks that overhang the otherwise strong macro story.