Shea almond covers 70% of Burkina Faso's surface area, and each year approximately 850 tons of shea nuts are produced and 250 tons of shea butter is processed. Shea almond provides substantial revenues for rural producers, including the 500,000 women whose livelihoods depend on shea almond. Despite the importance of shea almond for the country, Burkina Faso possesses neither a detailed analysis of shea almond performance, nor an action plan to guide stakeholder activities. As a result, the Government of Burkina Faso tasked ITC to create a sector development strategy for the shea almond industry, which was funded by the EIF Trust Fund.

 Results:

 In June 2015, the government adopted the Shea Almond Sector Development Strategy. This will serve as the reference document for all interventions at the national level in the shea almond industry.

• Based on the Sector Development Strategy, a project is being formulated to support the integrated development of the shea almond industry. The project will leverage US$1 million from the African Development Bank, and funding will also be provided by the Ministry of Industry's Projet d’appui à la transformation de l’économie et à la création de l’emploi (PATECE).
• 8 shea butter processors participated in the Foire internationale de Dakar (FIDAK) trade fair in December 2015.