Togo

Madam President of the 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly,

Excellencies Heads of State and Government,

Distinguished heads of delegation,

Mr. Secretary-General of the United Nations,

Ladies and gentlemen,

I would first like, on behalf of the President of the Council of Togo, H.E. Mr. Faure Essozimna Gnassingbé, the Government and the people of Togo, to extend our warm congratulations to Ms. Annalena Baerbock on her election as President of this 80th session of our General Assembly.

Faced with the many challenges confronting our common organization, Madam President, I wish to assure you of my country's full support and express my deep conviction that your leadership and relational intelligence will enable you to successfully lead the work of this session.

I also wish to pay well-deserved tribute to your predecessor, Mr. Philémon Yang, for the practical wisdom and constant availability he demonstrated in leading the work of the 79th session.

It is also particularly pleasing for me to commend the efforts of the Secretary-General, Mr. António Guterres, to revitalize our common institution, whose effectiveness is threatened by the return of unilateralism and the law of force to the detriment of the force of international legality.

In an international context of extreme confusion, where everything is upside down, it is not easy to be Secretary-General of the United Nations. That is why Togo gives you its full support.

Madam President,

The choice to place this session under the theme "Better together: 80 years and more for peace, development and human rights", offers us the opportunity not only to highlight the achievements of the past eight decades, but also, and above all, to reflect on the next steps to take in view of the challenges that continue to weigh on our shared vision of a peaceful, just and prosperous world.

Madam President, Ladies and gentlemen,

How can I speak to you of world affairs without speaking of my country Togo's remarkable performance? Rest assured, Togo is doing well — Togo is doing even better.

For the benefit of our people, my country Togo has recorded, in recent years, significant progress, widely recognized, in the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals. The government has made the 2030 Agenda not merely a frame of reference, but the true compass of public policy.

More than 70% of the SDG targets are now integrated into national strategies, in particular through the government's 2020-2025 roadmap, which is built around four essential pillars: the social, the economic, the environmental and governance. For example:

1. In terms of reforms related to improving public finance management systems and steering public investment, the government has carried out the following notable actions:

   • Digitalization and simplification of tax and customs procedures, which increased the revenue mobilization of the Togolese Revenue Office
   • Operationalization of the single window for filing financial statements (GUDEF), which allows for a single digitized financial statement filing
   • Digitalization of land title issuance procedures for the production of digital land titles
   • Operationalization of the Tax Policy Unit (UPF), enabling the preparation of the annual report on the evaluation of tax expenditures to be annexed to the finance bill
   • Consolidation of the program budget reform and program-based budgeting
   • Strengthening of the legal framework for public finance management oversight, including the creation and operationalization of a coordination framework for oversight bodies
   • Strengthening of the legal framework for public procurement, including the adoption of laws on public procurement and Public-Private Partnership contracts in 2021, in order to raise the level of use of budgetary credits allocated to investment projects

2. In terms of reforms related to improving the business climate:

   • Ability to hold hearings online
   • Reduction of timeframes for judicial procedures and acts
   • Digitalization of case management and filing at the Togo Arbitration Court
   • Digitalization of the formalities for business creation, statutory modification and declaration of beneficial owners
   • Digitalization of building permit issuance
   • Complete digitization of land title issuance

These various business-climate reforms have enabled Togo to achieve the third-best performance in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Generally speaking, the various reforms carried out by the Togolese government under its 2025 roadmap have made possible a number of achievements along the defined axes:

• 90.7% geographic accessibility to healthcare in 2023, an increase of 19.3% since 2020.
• Launch of universal health insurance covering approximately 3 million people (including students covered by School AMU).
• 150 billion CFA francs invested in the health sector (ELIPSE project, SSECQU, technology center).
• 86% access to drinking water in 2024, an increase of 26% since 2020.
• 74.5% access to electricity, with a reduction in dependence on external energy from 64% in 2020 to approximately 50% in 2025.
• 24.8% of the population living below the poverty line in 2025, compared to 51.1% in 2020.
• 85.7% financial inclusion, with 197,916 loans granted (ranging from 30,000 to 50 million CFA francs) worth 18.32 billion CFA francs.
• Increased agricultural yields (2020-2025) of 11%, 7%, 17% and 32% respectively for maize, rice, cassava and soybean.
• 9.8 billion CFA francs granted to finance 176,000 producers.
• 2,462,995 hectares of cultivated land in 2024, an increase of 12.21% compared to 2020 (2,195,038 ha).
• 30.6 million tonnes of goods handled at the Autonomous Port of Lomé in 2024, compared to 25.9 million tonnes in 2020.
• 4,472 km of rural tracks improved and 485 km of paved roads built and rehabilitated throughout the country by the end of December 2024.
• 1.5 million passengers received in 2024 at Gnassingbé Eyadéma International Airport.
• 10 industrial units made operational following the construction of the Adétikopé Industrial Platform (PIA), covering an area of 800 hectares.
• 346 billion CFA francs invested by projects approved in the free zone or under the investment code regime in Togo.
• 90% fixed and mobile internet coverage (versus 75% in 2020), and internet network capacity multiplied by 20 thanks to the Equiano cable.
• +67.6% in budget revenues, rising from 655.2 billion in 2020 to 1,098.1 billion in 2024.
• Recruitment of approximately 25,000 civil service agents (health, education, etc.).
• 3.4% of new vehicle registrations being electric vehicles in 2025 (versus 0.003% in 2020).
• Digitalization of nearly 200 public services.
• Increase in the tax revenue-to-GDP ratio from 12.4% in 2020 to 14.4% in 2024.
• 60% of coastline protected against coastal erosion (versus 44% in 2025), thanks to 18 km of protective structures.
• 40 million seedlings planted across 48,000 hectares of land.

The various achievements from the implementation of this roadmap have accelerated Togo's economic growth to 7% in 2025 and brought inflation under control. As an illustration, UNDP's 2024/2025 Human Development Index report highlights Togo's progress on indicators relating to income, schooling and life expectancy.

Within the WAEMU zone, Togo is one of only two countries classified as a "medium human development" country, and ranks 2nd in HDI within the zone. Within the ECOWAS zone, Togo ranks 4th in the HDI rankings.

These results testify to the determination of the Togolese government to combine economic resilience, social stability and ambition for sustainable development, in a global context marked by multiple challenges.

Madam President,

My country is modernizing and projecting itself confidently into the future. But these efforts are not immune to the terrorist threats weighing on the Sahel and the whole of West Africa. I would like, in this solemn setting, to pay heartfelt tribute to all the victims, civilian and military alike, who made the ultimate sacrifice in this difficult struggle.

Madam President,

Ladies and gentlemen,

This year, 2025, the United Nations is eighty years old, and eighty years is the age of maturity and of taking stock. We have come a long way together. But at this stage of our shared journey, we must have the courage to ask ourselves the right questions — those that open the way to truly promising prospects for humanity. We must take back control over the course of events in order to steer them toward the building of a less troubled and more just world. To that end, the world cannot remain deaf to the voices resounding from every quarter demanding change to the international order that was imposed eighty years ago by a small group of states with sometimes convergent, sometimes divergent interests.

Ladies and gentlemen,

As you know, the African Union chose as its theme for the year 2025 "Justice for Africans and People of African Descent Through Reparations." It is in light of this burning thirst for justice that we must understand Africa's current struggle for reparations. Africa demands justice, and its counterpart, reparation. Africa demands justice for having been humanly plundered and humiliated through the enslavement of its sons and daughters for more than four centuries. More than 20 million Africans were torn from their families and deported to the Americas, where they were enslaved. The souls of these millions of men are awaiting justice.

Africa demands justice for having been disoriented and profoundly disrupted in its historical trajectory by nearly a century of colonialism. Africa demands justice for having paid with its blood and its resources for the prosperity of other continents. Africa demands justice because between 80 and 90% of its cultural heritage is today found in foreign museums. Africa demands justice because African human remains remain in the hands of foreigners outside the continent, in violation of the sacred laws of Humanity. Africa demands justice because its significant contribution to the victory over the darkness of fascism in the 20th century was overlooked at the founding of the United Nations in 1945. Africa demands justice because it was excluded for 80 years from the world's decision-making bodies. Africa demands justice because the Security Council rests upon a denial of its peoples' right to just and equitable representation within it.

Africa demands justice because its children continue to be victims of racism and humiliation around the world. Africa demands justice because, as has been said, there exists a unique and unprecedented moral debt toward African peoples which has not yet been paid. Humanity has never been so humiliated as it was through the enslavement of our forebears and the colonization of Africa, the cradle of all human civilization.

Rest assured, Africa is not turned toward the past. We do not invoke the memory of slavery and colonization to dwell on the pain. We do so in order to build a future of justice and equity.

Ladies and gentlemen,

To illustrate my point, I would like to begin by showing you a map of the world. A map we all studied in school. It's called a planisphere; in technical language it is called the Mercator projection, named after a Flemish cartographer, Gerardus Mercator. And on this map that we all use, there is a serious problem.

The Mercator projection, inherited from the 16th century, reduces the continent by roughly half while enlarging Europe and North America. Africa spans more than 30 million km², three times the area of the United States. And yet, on our world maps, it barely appears larger. With an area of about 30.3 million km² (11.7 million square miles), including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of the Earth's land area and 6% of its total surface area. With nearly 1.4 billion inhabitants in 2021, it represents about 18% of the world's population.

The size of Africa is intentionally minimized. It is made to look as small as Greenland or Russia, and yet that is false when one considers the true size of the continent and its 54 countries. Africa alone could contain the United States, Russia, India, France, Great Britain, China, and more.

That is why Togo, in support of the African Union, calls for correcting the representation of Africa on world maps — with the campaign that I ask the United Nations to support, "Correct the Map." Geography must be decolonized. We need a new political cartography of Africa.

You also understand why, at the second Africa–Caribbean summit held on 7 September in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Africa and the Caribbean reaffirmed their determination to put their fraternal, transcontinental partnership at the service of reparative justice for Africans and people of African descent, and emphasized the need to move toward "the creation of an African Union Decade for justice for Africans and people of African descent (2026-2036) through reparations."

I wish here to salute our brothers and sisters in the Caribbean who have grasped the meaning of this struggle: you have understood that by standing together for the cause of reparations, we will advance it more effectively. This too is the essence of Pan-Africanism, a Pan-Africanism for justice and for the cause of reparations.

It was the same thirst for justice that prompted Togo to submit to the deliberative bodies of the African Union the initiative that led to the decision adopted by the Assembly of Heads of State and Government of our continental organization, on 16 February 2025, to classify slavery, deportation and colonization as crimes against humanity and genocide against the peoples of Africa.

This decision marks a major event for Africa and peoples of African descent, for it counters the logic whereby descendants of perpetrators dictate the terms of the debate and name their crimes, rather than the rightful heirs of the peoples who suffered those crimes in their flesh.

Ladies and gentlemen,

The United Nations must not remain indifferent to reparative justice, since past crimes and injustices left unrepaired, wherever they occurred, provide fuel for the crises and conflicts of our time and will fuel those to come. Today's crises feed on the unsettled injustices of the past, because peoples carry the memory of their wounds. Repairing the crimes and injustices of the past is one of the remedies we need to bring peace back to the world and to relations between civilizations.

Africa, as a continent of resilience and hope, embodies this necessity of reparative justice. The acknowledgment of past injustices, particularly through concrete actions in favor of reparations, constitutes an indispensable step toward establishing lasting peace and social cohesion.

That is why, from this rostrum and with gravity, I wish to call on world public opinion to have the courage to confront the question of reparations. Today, Africa stands upright before the world and demands reparation.

To repair the crimes of the past is to repair History. And to repair History is to remove the obstacles to greater justice and equity in the world; it is to dismantle the systems built on exploitation that continue to influence and structure the lives of many peoples; it is to save the world from oblivion and to perpetuate the memory of millions of people; it is to act in the present to correct the wrongs of the past; it is to free the world from discrimination and racism; it is to escape the "endless trap" of exclusion and denial of justice.

Among the reparations that Africa expects from the world, there are, in addition to those for the Atlantic slave trade and colonization, reparations that must involve a reconfiguration of global trading systems and global economic and financial reforms, debt restructuring, and structural reparations for fair and equitable representation within international bodies.

Reparations do not consist only of material compensation. They must also take the form of lasting investments in education, in infrastructure, in health, in science and technology, which will enable Africa to make up for accumulated delays and fully unleash its potential.

In the Pact for the Future resolution adopted last year by heads of state and government, representing the peoples of the world, gathered here in New York at the headquarters of our institution, we together underscored the urgent necessity of reforming the Security Council to make it more representative and better suited to the world as it is today. We must move to action. Reform of the Security Council is a matter of repairing a historic wrong done to Africa and to other peoples of the world.

Reform of the Security Council, with the granting of permanent seats to Africa, is an imperative of dignity and justice. But this reform must go hand in hand with the recognition that today's global inequalities are rooted in historical injustices. To refuse to address them is to perpetuate an unfinished multilateralism.

The reform of multilateral institutions that the peoples of Africa have been demanding for decades, and which is being pursued with growing insistence and fervor in these times of major global upheaval, must therefore be understood as a demand for reparation in compensation for Africa's marginalization within multilateral institutions.

This particular aspect of reparation, which constitutes one of the essential components of the overall reparation that Africa is entitled to expect from the world, will be at the heart of the 9th Pan-African Congress of Lomé, on "Renewal of Pan-Africanism and Africa's role in the reform of multilateral institutions: mobilizing resources and reinventing ourselves in order to act." I invite the whole African community and its partners, as well as all people of goodwill who cherish justice, to make this gathering a historic success.

Through reparation, we will succeed in renewing peoples' confidence in multilateral institutions, beginning with the United Nations. Reparation will allow us to project ourselves together into a humanity reconciled with itself. To render justice to peoples wounded by historic crimes and injustices is to contribute to repairing the world, to the great benefit of all.

Madam President,

Ladies and gentlemen,

Africa has been left aside over the past eighty years in global governance. It is high time to repair this injustice. Very rarely does History offer opportunities as favorable as those it offers us today to change the course of the world.

After so many historical injustices against Africa, the moment has come to repair them, in the spirit of an ethic of repentance and the reconstruction of a new relationship. This struggle we are waging is not only an African struggle. It is a struggle for humanity. A struggle so that the injustices of the past never again dictate the inequalities of the present.

That is why we ask the United Nations, in turn and for the sake of its own credibility, to qualify the transatlantic slave trade, colonization, slavery and deportation not only as crimes against humanity but, above all, as GENOCIDE against the peoples of Africa.

Genocide, genocide, genocide, genocide, genocide, genocide.

Thank you.