Togo

In 1925, Togo, a Siberian husky who loves being a sled dog, leads a team that rushes to bring diphtheria antitoxin from Anchorage to Nome, Alaska.

Essays based on letters he wrote from Lome, the West African capital where Blake spent a Fulbright year. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Togo Heihachiro (1848-1934) was born into a feudal society that had lived in seclusion for 250 years. As a teenage samurai, he witnessed the destruction wrought upon his native land by British warships. As the legendary "Silent Admiral", he was at the forefront of innovations in warfare, pioneering the Japanese use of modern gunnery and wireless communication. He is best known as "the Nelson of the East" for his resounding victory over the Tsar's navy in the Russo-Japanese War, but he also lived a remarkable life: studying at a British maritime college, witnessing the Sino-French War, the Hawaiian Revolution, and the Boxer Uprising. After his retirement, he was appointed to oversee the education of the Emperor, Hirohito. This new biography spans Japan's sudden, violent leap out of its self-imposed isolation and into the 20th century. Delving beyond Togo's finest hour at the Battle of Tsushima, it portrays the life of a diffident Japanese sailor in Victorian Britain, his reluctant celebrity in America (where he was laid low by Boston cooking and welcomed by his biggest fan, Theodore Roosevelt), forgotten wars over the short-lived Republics of Ezo and Formosa, and the accumulation of peacetime experience that forged a wartime hero.

This Selected Issues paper discusses the assessment of economic activity in Togo in absence of quarterly GDP series. Togo collects about 40 macroeconomic indicators monthly that span a wide range of sectors of the economy. The selection of the variables for the economic activity index is conducted by finding the combination of variables. The indicators are aggregated into an index using a methodology used by the Conference Board. Then an economic activity index is constructed that effectively replicates the historical growth rates of real GDP in Togo. The selected index minimizes the deviations between the growth rates of the indicator and actual real GDP growth over 2002–13.

Togo’s macroeconomic situation remains difficult, despite some modest improvements. Despite the impact of the global recession, program implementation has generally been satisfactory, although corrective actions are necessary for recent slippages. Debt management and monitoring are being strengthened. In light of the difficult macroeconomic conditions, a countercyclical fiscal policy stance is required. Sustainable fiscal policy requires a gradual consolidation, as global conditions improve further. Togo’s main economic challenges are continuing to strengthen public finances and completing structural reforms to enhance growth potential.