About GEN Togo

GEN began building an entrepreneurial movement in Togo in 2010 when it launched its first Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW) campaign in partnership with the Initiative des Jeunes pour le Développement (IJD). It was an immediate success, coalescing the nascent entrepreneurial community and providing an annual platform to organize year-round support for entrepreneurs. As the campaign grew, GEN and IJD mobilized incubators, universities (including the University of Lomé), and government agencies around the idea that enterprise would propel the country's economic development. From its earliest editions, GEN's work in Togo reached beyond the capital, convening the ecosystem's scattered actors into a unified space.

As GEW matured, the annual campaign grew into a structured program of roundtables, workshops, financing forums, science days, and a closing gala that became one of its signature moments. By 2017, GEN and IJD were running programming simultaneously in seven cities: Atakpamé, Dapaong, Kara, Kpalimé, Lomé, Tsévié, and Sokodé. Through the Nuit des Entrepreneurs, initiated that year, GEN and IJD honored Togolese founders whose businesses were creating jobs. These included Yao Azoumah of Kya-Energy Group and agricultural innovator Kossi Agbalenyo, recognized in 2024 for his work on bio-fertilizers and bio-pesticides.

In 2018, to carry its work forward on a year-round basis, GEN established a national affiliate, GEN Togo, and appointed Dr. Pascal Edoh Agbové as its managing director. Dr. Agbové brought a deep grounding in Togolese civil society and enterprise development to the role. After founding IJD, he directed SIM-Afrique, a consulting firm, and IFAID, a youth training institute. He also worked closely with the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Togo, an early backer of GEW in the country. Under his direction, GEN Togo set out to foster a continuous entrepreneurial culture, connecting Togo's startup champions to their counterparts abroad while delivering enterprise training and inclusive economic growth programs.

When GEN Togo partnered with the Network of Incubators and Support Structures of Togo (RISAT), the 2024 GEW campaign drew more than 1,500 participants across four cities: Atakpamé, Kara, Tsévié, and Lomé. Held under the national theme of entrepreneurship for the development of territories, the campaign brought entrepreneurs, students, and investors together with 21 support structures that presented their services at an ecosystem forum. An organized hackathon sent two winning teams, Banafib and GreenBox, into six months of tailored support. The campaign's expansion into regional capitals marked GEN Togo's shift from raising awareness to building the ecosystem's structural capacity.

The inclusion of women and young founders became a defining thread of GEN's work in Togo. The 2024 hackathon focused on women and green entrepreneurship, and the campaign increasingly drew on European partnerships to unlock financing for underserved founders. Chief among these was IYBA-SEED (Investing in Young Businesses in Africa), a Team Europe initiative backed by the European Union that helped fund and shape GEN Togo's programs. By 2025, GEN Togo was mobilizing the companion IYBA Women Empowerment for Africa (We4A) program, supported by the German development agency GIZ, to close the structural gaps that keep women entrepreneurs from accessing capital and markets.

GEN Togo opened GEW 2025 at the Palais des Congrès in Lomé under the theme “Ensemble, construisons” (“Let's build together”). The event was co-organized with Togo's Agency for the Development of Very Small and Medium Enterprises (ADTPME) and IJD, with joint support from the European Union and GIZ. This partnership reflected how far GEN had traveled in Togo—evolving from a civil-society campaign into a national policy tool that carried workshops, pitch competitions, and training into regional capitals. Earlier that year, GEN Togo had launched the first International Festival of Local Economic Development (FIDEL), held in Lomé in May 2025, to link local authorities with technical and financial partners around territorial investment and job creation.

GEN also connected Togo to the global stage. Dr. Agbové led national delegations to the Global Entrepreneurship Congress (GEC), describing the gatherings as a vital chance to build the networks and partnerships that advance entrepreneurship across borders. These appearances placed Togo's ecosystem within GEN's worldwide community of founders, ecosystem leaders, and policymakers, reinforcing the country's standing as an active participant in global programming.

GEN Togo's work rests on a broad coalition. It coordinates programming through the RISAT network of public, private, and academic incubators—including the clean-energy incubator Energy Generation—and works alongside the ADTPME, the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Togo, and the University of Lomé. Together with financing partners WIDU and the We4A initiative, the European Union, Expertise France, and GIZ supported its programs, which has extended GEN's reach from Lomé into communities across the country.

GEN’s progress in Togo is inseparable from Dr. Agbové, who drove its work for more than a decade until his passing in March 2026. Since then, GEN’s co-organizing partners—ADTPME, the leadership of IJD, and the RISAT network—have collectively led its efforts coordinated by Koffi Segondo Dagbegnon, the co-founder and CEO of Klumer SAS, an events firm. GEN's mission in Togo continues along the path Dr. Agbové set: decentralizing opportunity beyond Lomé, opening financing to women and young founders, and knitting the country's incubators, universities, and public agencies into a single, cohesive ecosystem. As Dr. Agbové noted when he opened GEN Togo's 15th GEW in 2025, the ultimate goal remains “to inspire the new generation of entrepreneurs and to recognize the essential role of SMEs in the national economy.”