According to FAO, non-wood forest products (NTFP) are products of biological origin other than lumber from forests, other woodlands and trees outside forests. They provide food, income, employment, medicinal plants, energy, fishing equipment, and construction materials.

In order to make the management of NTFPs sustainable while increasing their contribution in households and in the national economy, the Government of the Republic of Burundi with technical support from FAO has developed this National Strategy and Action Plan (SNPA) for the development of the NTFP sector in Burundi. Since the NTFP sector is composed of several actors and involves many sectors of the national economy, a multi-actor and multi-sectoral approach was used under the effective coordination of the National Consultative Committee (NCC) on NTFPs, which supervised the entire process of preparing and validating the final report.