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Informal cross-border trade in Africa: How much? Why? And what impact?

Author: Bouet, Antoine

Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst

Published: 2018-12-21

Total Pages: 56

ISBN-13:

Informal cross-border trade (ICBT) represents a prominent phenomenon in Africa. Several studies suggest that for certain products and countries, the value of informal trade may meet or even exceed the value of formal trade. This paper provides a review of existing efforts to measure informal trade. We list 18 initiatives aimed at measuring ICBT in Africa. The paper also summarizes discussions conducted with many stakeholders in Africa between December 2016 and May 2018 regarding the measurement, the determinants, and the implications of ICBT. The methodologies used to measure ICBT in Africa differ widely, but they do confirm that informal trade in Africa is both sizeable and volatile. Both evidence on the determinants of ICBT and discussions with stakeholders suggest that policies should aim to reduce the existing costs associated with formal trade and provide positive incentives for traders and producers to move into the formal economy in order to avoid the loss of economic potential stemming from informal trade.

Handbook on Trade and Development

Author: Oliver Morrissey

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

Published: 2015-05-29

Total Pages: 476

ISBN-13: 1781005311

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This timely Handbook comprehensively explores the complex relationships between trade and economic performance in developing countries, illustrating that it is not trade per se that is important but the context, at the firm, country and regional level, in which trade occurs.

Informal Cross-border Trade in Africa

Author: Antoine Bouët

Publisher:

Published: 2018

Total Pages:

ISBN-13:

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Informal Cross-Border Trade in Africa

Author: Kathryn Pace

Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst

Published: 2019-10-02

Total Pages: 6

ISBN-13:

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As ICBT appears to be so large and is heavily linked to food security, economic development, and women’s empowerment, it is important to obtain accurate measurements of this type of trade. More accurate data can improve the statistical measurements of balance of payments and external accounts, improving global trade measurement and modeling, and facilitate the development of more accurate domestic food balance sheets. Overall, measurement of ICBT in Africa can provide a more accurate picture of other aspects related to informal trade, including information on informal labor markets and movement patterns of staple foods during periods of crises. Each of these provides the opportunity for better policymaking using reliable and accurate data.

Towards an Estimate of Informal Cross-border Trade in Africa

Author: Edwin Gaarder

Publisher:

Published: 2021

Total Pages:

ISBN-13:

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Official trade statistics typically capture only formal trade. In order to accurately monitor intra-African trade, it is important to understand the scale of informal trade. Reliable data on informal cross-border trade (ICBT) is also crucial to building awareness among policymakers of the importance of this phenomenon and to make a case for policy action. This paper provides a comparative analysis of the ratio of informal to formal trade for African countries for which data is available. Based on this assessment, the paper makes the first ever attempt to estimate the total value of ICBT in Africa. We estimate that the value of ICBT is significant across all African subregions. Our estimate found ICBT to be equivalent to between 7 and 16 per cent of formal intra-African trade flows, and to between 30 and 72 per cent of formal trade between neighbouring countries. Those figures are significant and have important implications for the value, composition and sophistication of intra-African trade, particularly between neighbouring countries. Within the context of efforts to implement the Agreement Establishing the African Continental Free Trade Area, ICBT data collection must be institutionalized in order to facilitate accurate tracking of intra-African trade flows.

Informal Cross-border Trade in the Southern African Development Community (SADC)

Author: Nsolo J. Mijere

Publisher: OSSREA

Published: 2008-12-31

Total Pages: 128

ISBN-13:

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This study investigates the existence and volume of informal cross-border trade (ICBT) in the mainland SADC member states. The four basic research questions for the study were as follows: Is there informal cross-border trade among the mainland SADC member states? Do the informal traders (ICBTs) contribute to the SADC national economies and to the economies of the region as a whole, and is this revenue acknowledged by the SADC nation governments? Does the ICBT facilitate the new mission of SADC: the promotion of social, economic and political integration in the Southern African region? Lastly and perhaps most importantly have the SADC member states or SADC as an organisation formally put in place trade policies and regulations that promote the development of ICBT in the region? The study further explores the extent to which the cross-border ethnic relationships of ICBTs assist and facilitate the activities of the informal cross-border micro-trade. These questions are investigated within the context of SADC, a regional grouping with a long geo-political history as well as common colonial and socio-economic experiences that have all impacted on and restrained formal trade among SADC member states.

COVID-19 impact on informal trade: Disruptions to livelihoods and food security in Africa

Author: Bouët, Antoine

Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst

Published: 2021-01-23

Total Pages: 8

ISBN-13:

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International trade of food and agricultural products plays a major role in ensuring food security and livelihoods across the African continent. Yet formal intracontinental trade data give only a glimpse of trade’s importance for African consumers and producers because—depending on the country and bor-der—up to 99 percent of agricultural trade crosses borders informally.1 In West Africa, for example, an estimated 30 percent of staple foods evade formal customs, and the proportion can be much greater for highly perishable fruits and vegetables. Consequently, formal trade data paint only a limited picture of COVID-19’s disruptive effect on trade within the African continent—and of related nutrition and liveli-hood consequences. To better understand the current and future impacts on African food producers and consumers, we must examine both the magnitude and unique mechanisms of informal cross-bor-der trade (ICBT).

Women Without Borders

Author: V. N. Muzvidziwa

Publisher: OSSREA

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 208

ISBN-13:

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In the face of a declining and collapsing national economy, this book presents the story of enterprising and entrepreneurial Zimbabwean women, operating as informal cross-border traders in the SADC region. The women are struggling against economic wants and deprivation, and devising their own initiatives to defeat poverty. The study relates their hopes, perceptions and strategies for managing the structural constraints at micro- and macro-levels that at once make their activities necessary, and simultaneously impose limitations on them.