Rural enterprise development for poverty alleviation based on non-wood forest products in Central Africa

SUMMARY Using the Market Analysis and Development approach to generate the results presented in this paper, it was found that rural communities prefer certain NWFP for increasing their incomes in central Africa. Four enterprise development factors including market/economic, social, environmental and technological considerations were useful criteria for the NWFP selection process. 14 local non-governmental organisations were trained on enterprise development modules that further trained 233 groups with a total membership of 3515 people in 87 villages. Significant variation was observed between countries in terms of total membership and the number of women engaged per group. It was suggested that the promotion of NWFPs through small-scale enterprise development could form an important entry point for poverty alleviation and food security in Central African villages.