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On March 10, we had the great opportunity to meet with 20 experts from academia and agricultural research institutions, local NGOs, the German Technical Cooperation (GTZ), and farmers from the Tamale region to discuss the future of Deco! and possible partnerships and collaborations. The one-day workshop took place at the Tamale Institute for Cross-Cultural Studies (TICCS). We got loads of feedback from the different stakeholders in the discussion rounds. We will analyse and evaluate all the valuable input we obtained and incorporate it into our strategy for the next organic fertilizer production cycles to come.

After these very fruitful discussion rounds, our workshop ended with a visit to our production site in the village Kukuo Yepalsi near Tamale. Our largest visitor group so far! We are glad and grateful for the many people that showed interest in what we do - thanks for attending our workshop to all participants! Pictures can be found under our gallery section...

A few weeks ago, we had the fantastic opportunity to advocate DeCo! beyond Ghana\\\\\\\'s borders and extend our network on the African continent. Ibrahim represented DeCo! in a meeting of nearly 200 participants of the Green Economy symposium with the 30 global winners of the SEED Awards 2010 in Pretoria, South Africa.

After obtaining a last-minute visa -literally!-, Ibrahim had to rush to the airport to embark on the first flight of his life. After a good night\\\\\\\'s sleep in Pretoria, he set up a small showcase sample of our fertilizer for the ceremony. He even planted some fresh and green grass on it!

The Executive Director of the SEED initiative Helen Marquard gave the opening speech, and she and the UN under secretary-general and Executive Director of UNEP Achim Steiner introduced the work of UNEP, including the Green Economy Initiative. As Mr Steiner said, \\\\"The SEED winners underline how the green shoots of a Green Economy are sprouting across the developing world. (...)\\\\" And: DeCo! is part of it!

We got the opportunity to network and present our product to development partners in the afternoon. In the evening, the awards ceremony took place, and Ibrahim took the award for all of us, including the audience\\\\\\\'s standing ovations!

On his last day in Pretoria, Ibrahim collaborated in a workshop at the Department of Science and Technology at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). A good opportunity for presenting our product and work, and networking with other SEED Award winners, especially those operating in our field.

The grass shalll grow and flourish!

On March 4, the complete DeCo! team met in Accra and received the SEED Award 2010. Right after the ceremony, we participated in a strategy workshop provided by the SEED initiative.

We were coached by the consulting firm adelphi. For two full days, Yakubu, Ibrahim, Christoph, Marion, Gregor, Stephen, Katja, Marius and Leen had heated discussions and brainstorming sessions. We returned to Tamale with a whole bunch of new ideas and management tools for making DeCo! yet more successful and professional. Thanks to Cosima for the excellent coaching!

DeCo! is one of the 30 winners (out of 428 projects which applied) of the highly acknowledged Seed Award 2010. Each year UNEP and UNDP jointly look for innovative start-ups in developing countries, which aim to tackle environmental and social challenges. Please find more information on the website www.seedinit.org or have a look on the press release of UNEP: http://www.unep.org/Documents.Multilingual/Default.asp?DocumentID=651&ArticleID=6814&l=en&t=long

In the rapidly growing city Tamale, problems and issues of solid waste management are of major importance. Currently, solid waste is disposed of in unsanitary landfills, leading to the pollution of soil, surface- and groundwater through leachate and to uncontrolled methane production.

DeCo! helps to improve these problems through a new collaboration with the Ghanaian waste management company Zoomlion. Starting the third week of February, DeCo composts part of the organic fraction of the the municipal waste to produce fertilizer. In a first test run, the goal is to compost 150 tonnes of municipal waste between February and April 2011.

Recylcing the waste reduces the waste burden of the city and and produces valuable fertilizer.

Farmers in the Savanna Region of Ghana (North of Ghana) face severe soil degradation due to an insufficient application of organic matter to the soil. The consequences are lower yields which cause food shortages and food insecurity.
Composting is widely seen as the best solution to increase soil quality and reduce soil degradation. However, numerous attempts to encourage farmers to compost by themselves failed since the process involves a lot of work before the first benefits are seen and knowledge to produce compost is hard to transfer to every single farmer.

DeCo! is a registered NGO, which is convinced of the benefits of compost and solves the named problems by providing a composting service to smallholder farmers. People in the villages sell the collected biomass to DeCo!. At a decentralized composting plant the biomass of 3 to 6 surrounding villages is gathered and composted. Deco! employs only local people who have no alternative work during dry season. Finally, the compost is offered to local farmers which apply it before the sowing period.

With your contribution you support the pilot phase of the project and help to:
- reduce soil degradation
- create local unskilled jobs
- improve food security
- reduce GHG emissions (from a landfill in Tamale)
- support a non-profit social business during its starting period

After the pilot phase (2010/2011) DeCo! will be self-sustaining by investing all revenues in new compost production. The overall objective is to have a closed system and a durable sustainable project which can be easily scaled up to other regions.

In February 2011 we launched our new Website. You can find a lot of information about our organisation. Have a look!