Can Non‐Timber Forest Products Reduce Monetary Poverty?

ABSTRACT Non‐timber forest products (NTFPs) provide vital income to rural populations, but their contribution to poverty alleviation is poorly studied in many developing countries like Burkina Faso. This article aims to analyse the effects of sustainable exploitation of NTFPs on the monetary poverty of households in rural Burkina Faso. The article adopts two different approaches to address its objective: (i) an estimation of Foster–Greer–Thorbecke poverty indicators by considering households’ income from NTFPs as an exogenous transfer, and (ii) a regression of a logistic model that explains the probability of households being poor on their economic dependence on NTFPs, defined as the share of NTFP income in their total income. This research uses original data collected quarterly from August 2020 to July 2021 across 408 randomised households. Results show that NTFP exploitation contributes to a significant reduction in monetary poverty in the study area and that households with the lowest and highest dependence on NTFPs have the lowest probability of being poor. These results suggest that rural populations should be more sensitised on sustainable NTFP exploitation techniques to enhance their income.