In Togo, Solar Energy Enhances Community Healthcare and Empowers Rural Farmers

Night falls on the Batonou Health Center, located along the Mono River, which separates Togo from Benin. Nurse, midwife, and head of the Peripheral Care Unit, Victorine Massegbe Ablavi, moves around an examination bed. Just a few years ago, this scene would have taken place in the dark, with a flashlight held between her teeth or hung around her neck.

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Tonight, a light illuminates the room, thanks to recently installed solar panels. Ablavi’s hands are now free, and every gesture is safe. Electricity, once a luxury in urban areas, is now essential at this rural health center, alongside medicine and clean water.

Reflecting on her 29 years of service, Ablavi recalls, “We worked in the dark, risking injuries from sharp equipment. Sometimes we couldn’t even find a patient’s veins for an injection. It was dangerous,” she says, her eyes clouded with emotion.

One tragedy stands out in her memory: a young mother with postpartum hemorrhage could not be treated effectively due to the lack of light and died during her evacuation to Afagnan, a nearby town.

“Today, this can no longer happen,” she asserts. And thanks to the Projet d’appui au volet social du programme CIZO d’électrification rurale (PRAVOST), those dark days seem to be over.