Modern bioenergy is a core ingredient of sustainable economic development as it plays an important role in poverty reduction and green growth. This makes bioenergy innovations critical, especially in developing countries where many households and rural communities rely on traditional bioenergy.

This 2014 edition of the State of World’s Forests report 2014 launched by FAO focuses on the role of socio-economic benefits provided by forests, including income and employment, wood energy and forest products in housing. It also focuses on the need to shift attention from trees to people, both for data collection and policy making.

Energy is important both for economic development, but it also plays a major role in improving conditions at the household level. The notion of an energy poverty line is well accepted around the world. There is a large body of literature on how to measure income poverty and the reliability of alternate measures.