Informal cross-border trade in Africa

This chapter aims to propose an assessment of the reality of informal trade in Africa, particularly in agriculture: How is it defined? What are its determinants? What is its magnitude, both in terms of traded products and countries involved? We present two interesting initiatives that are intended to assess the phenomenon of ICBT in African regions: (1) an initiative coordinated by the Permanent Interstate Committee for Drought Control in the Sahel (Comité permanent Inter-État de Lutte contre la Sécheresse au Sahel, abbreviated as CILSS) and implemented by the West African Association for Cross-Border Trade in Agro-forestry-pastoral and Fisheries Products - (AOCTAH, Association Ouest Africaine du Commerce Transfrontalier des produits Alimentaires, Agro-sylvo-pastoraux et Halieutiques) that measures informal/unrecorded trade in agricultural commodities in West Africa; and (2) an initiative designed by the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBoS) and Bank of Uganda (BoU) which assesses informal/unrecorded trade in agricultural and industrial commodities at Uganda’s borders with its neighboring countries.