This initiative is a shea industry development project in Togo that aims to alleviate poverty and create an avenue for the improvement of food and socio-economic conditions. Its purpose is to reduce poverty among women and youth involved in the Shea products business through improved organizational structure and governance, increased plantation population of Shea trees in available land within or near the existing parkland, and strengthened Shea products value chains to create an enabling environment for investment (production, processing, and market access).  

The Project aims to directly benefit 15,000 women and youth engaged in shea production, collection, and processing, including the creation of 5000 green jobs.  

 The shea tree is a multipurpose tree crop indigenous to Sub Saharan Africa. The gross income per woman collector is at USD 75 annually.  

Through shea parklands expansion and improvement of collector productivity, the gross income per woman collector could increase to USD 167 per year. Shea trees grow naturally and are integrated with crops on smallholder farms, creating an agroforestry landscape that acts like a carbon sink. 

In Togo, as in most African countries, the forestry sector plays a very important role in the national economy and provides a set of economic, social and environmental functions. However, this sector faces many problems, which result in the degradation of forest massifs, the disappearance of certain utilitarian forest species, the loss of the values of certain forest products and the low resilience of local populations to the effects of climate change. To work for the sustainable management of forest resources and to contribute to the improvement of incomes and living conditions in rural areas, many organizations and actors agree on the promotion of non-timber forest products. In Central Africa and in some West African countries, there are real channels for certain non-timber forest products from species such as Ricinodendron heudelotii, Irvingia gabonensis, Vitellaria Paradoxa, Adansonia digitata, Parkia biglobosa, etc.

The socio-economic importance of these sectors has been proven nationally and internationally (MERF, 2018). 

As a way of diversification of sources of food and income for poor people, especially rural women and youth, special attention was recommended to shea parkland management and development.