Togo

Togo: Rising Military Outlay Against a Fragile Governance Base

Togo's economy registered $10.65 billion in gross domestic product for 2024, per World Bank WDI figures, with per-capita output of $1,119.38 the same year against a population of 9,515,236. Government debt reached 64.7 percent of GDP in IMF WEO figures for 2026, a substantial load relative to the economy's size.

Military posture

SIPRI's Milex data for 2025 put Togolese defense spending at $204.95 million, equal to 1.874 percent of GDP on SIPRI's own GDP series for that year — a figure that should not be read against the World Bank GDP series cited above, since SIPRI derives its share from its own national accounts. The Correlates of War National Material Capabilities dataset recorded 13,000 active-duty personnel in 2022 and assigned Togo a Composite Index of National Capability (CINC) score of 0.00053791213 for the same year, a measure that aggregates demographic, industrial and military weight into a single index of relative state power.

Governance

V-Dem v15's 2025 indicators show an electoral democracy index of 0.351 and a liberal democracy index of 0.157, scores that point to a system with constrained political competition. The state capacity index stood at 0.207 for the same year, indicating limited institutional reach relative to the demands of governing.

Energy

Primary energy consumption totaled 0.0445 exajoules in 2023, per Our World in Data's energy series, and electricity generation reached 0.71 terawatt-hours in 2024 — a modest figure relative to the population size cited above. Both oil and gas production were recorded at zero terawatt-hours, but that reading carries a 2016 date, considerably older than the other energy figures in this bundle.

Data gaps

The oil and gas production figures are stale, dated 2016 against 2023-2024 dates for the rest of the energy series, and should not be treated as a current account of Togo's hydrocarbon output. No reserves series appears in this bundle, so the government debt figure above cannot be set against a measure of external liquidity. The governance indices, all dated 2025, and the economic figures, dated 2024 and 2026, otherwise carry recent reference years with no further gaps flagged.

Sources: World Bank WDI, IMF WEO, SIPRI Milex, COW NMC, V-Dem v15, Our World in Data (Energy).