©Afreepress-(Lomé, August, 31, 2017)- The training workshop on the American MCA program was officially launched on Monday, 28th August, 2017, by the Minister of Communication, Guy-Madjé Lorenzo. The objective of the training workshop is to understand the process that led Togo to be elected to the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA) program and to achieve the Threshold score in 2016.

The Minister welcomed the initiative and called on journalists to be "excellent partners" of Togo in the process to lead the country to pull the compact program. The contribution of the media and newspaper owners, he said, is "important" in the conduct of this process. He urged the participants to work with the MCA-Togo Unit in order to have more information on the process.

 In total, some 60 newspaper owners have followed the communications on the agenda of this meeting, which focus on: "The strategic approach of dialogue between the actors, for a guarantee of the freedom of the press in Togo, "Follow-up of indicators: prioritization, perspectives and actions involving press leaders", "The presentation OF MCC, MCA, eligibility criteria, indicators and scorecard" and "Threshold program formulation process update For Togo ".

It should be recalled that Togo was declared eligible for the Threshold in 2016 and will benefit from more than US $ 33 million for its development projects. The country is working hard to reach the Threshold program very quickly. In order to do so, Togo has embarked on a series of major economic and political reforms which have enabled it to validate 12 indicators out of 20 during last November on the occasion of the publication of the scorecard of 2017.

The meeting was attended by Minister Stanislas Baba, coordinator of the MCA cell in Togo, Aimé Ekpé, President of the Togolese Media Observatory (OTM), co-organizer of the workshop with the MCA cell in Togo.

Patricia I.