review · Forest Science and Technology
A systematic review of 60 studies published between 2010 and 2022 examined the economic contribution and uses of non-timber forest products across the Horn of Africa. The surveyed literature primarily covered Ethiopia, Sudan, and Kenya, with additional data spanning six nations in total. The analysis revealed that non-timber forest products provide a substantial contribution to rural livelihoods, accounting for an average of 24.41 percent of overall rural household income. Across the region, researchers identified more than 35 distinct product uses and sources. While the specific types of products utilised varied significantly between countries, five main categories were widely exploited across almost the entire region: gum arabic, food, firewood, medicinal plants, and honey. The findings confirm that these natural resources serve as a critical foundation for rural income generation throughout the Horn of Africa.
Rural communities in dry and forested areas often depend on diverse natural resources for survival. By quantifying the financial role of non-timber forest products, this research demonstrates that wild resources, including honey, gum arabic, and medicinal plants, deliver nearly a quarter of rural household earnings in parts of the Horn of Africa, highlighting their importance for rural economic planning and conservation initiatives.
The findings highlight existing commercial and subsistence activity in products such as gum arabic, honey, food, and medicinal plants. These established commodities represent immediate opportunities for enterprise development, value addition, and supply chain formalisation by rural cooperatives, agricultural businesses, and development agencies. Because this is a systematic review of existing studies rather than a product development trial, the abstract provides no specific data on technology readiness or direct intellectual property pathways.
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Non-timber forest products (NTFPs) are those that come from forests other than those that provide timber. In order to identify the NTFPs’ financial contribution and usage categories based on regional and temporal patterns in the Horn of Africa countries, we performed a systematic review of 60 papers published between 2010 and 2022. The review used the search terms Non-Timber Forest Product* OR Non- Wood Forest Product*(NWFPs) OR Minor Forest Product in combination with Livelihoods and also Horn of Africa countries to thoroughly search the articles on the Google Scholar, Research4life, Scopus, Science direct, ResearchGate portals, EMBASE, and PubMed databases. The records contained information about the paper’s title, abstract, keywords, authors, country, NTFP income amount, NTFP usage type, and publication year. The recorded data were analyzed using R Studio, IBM SPSS Statistics 26, and Excel 2019. The majority of the research article for this review was done in Ethiopia (45%), Sudan (22%) and Kenya (17%), respectively. According to the review’s findings, NTFPs have a significant impact on rural household income in six nations, the average NTFP overall revenue was 24.41%. There were more than 35 NTFP uses and the source of product in the Horn of African Countries however, Gum Arabic, Food, Firewood, Medicinal plant, and honey were the five NTFP usage types that were used by people and found in almost in all countries of the Horn of Africa. The fact that different countries utilize different types of NTFPs, the most commonly used types of NTFPs have statistically significances differ (p < 0.05). According to the systematic review, the Horn of Africa is rich in NTFPs, which enhance rural income.
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DOI: 10.1080/21580103.2023.2231963
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