The project benefits from the expertise of Gevalor, which has supported and trained three other PPI projects and, together with GoodPlanet, led the Africompost project supporting 6 compost production units across Africa, funded by AfD, FFEM, AIMF, and others.
The project aims to convert organic waste from Parakou, Benin’s third-largest city (200,000 inhabitants), into natural soil amendment or compost, helping improve urban sanitation, create jobs, support agricultural development, and combat climate change. This low-investment-cost process offers environmental, health and economic benefits.
The objective is to help the composting unit, established in 2011 on land provided by the city council, achieve organisational and financial autonomy, ensuring the sustainability of these positive impacts. This requires increasing the volume of waste processed and developing the compost market, which should find significant local demand given the presence of yam, cassava, sorghum and market gardening crops in the area.
The project’s direct beneficiaries will be the 640 farmers who will be able to reduce their consumption of imported chemical fertilisers, which are more expensive than the compost produced by Planète Contact.
In addition, it is necessary to develop the market for carbon credits generated by the unit: FFEM’s grant will contribute to the initial steps of preparing a Gold Standard application to obtain carbon credits.