Walking in the Dark: informal Cross-border trade ... - International Alert

Walking in the Dark: Informal Cross-border Trade in the Great Lakes Region
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(8 percent), housing and support for agriculture. 30 In other words, trade does not allow these
households to advance economically; it mainly allows them to survive.
Despite the low levels of revenue that it generates, small trade plays an important role as a means
of survival for a large number of people: across all sites, 91 percent of small trader households
included more than three people and 23 percent included more than 10. Overall there is an
average of 7.2 people per small trader household.
Table 6: Breakdown of traders according to household composition
Number of
people in
household
Bukavu
(no.)
Bukavu %
Uvira (no.)
Uvira %
Cibitoke
(no.)
Cibitoke %
Arua (no.)
Arua %
Overall
(no.)
Overall %
1-3 78 5.8% 74 10 62 10.5% 129 14 343 9
4-9 927 68.5% 450 58 429 72.3% 670 73 2476 68
> 10 348 25.7% 249 32 102 17.2% 122 13 821 23
Overall 1353 100 773 100 593 100 921 100 3640 100
As indicated in Table 7, the average number of traders crossing the border each day in Bukavu,
Uvira, Cibitoke and Arua in both directions, is 2358, 466, 89 and 214 respectively. 31 With an
average of 7.2 people per household, the number of people who depend on small trade at these
sites is 22,514.
As well as these 22,514 people and an unknown number of agents working on the border (and
their families), this trade is also a source of significant revenue for:
• those who produce the goods traded (and their families);
• the wholesalers and employees (and their families) at the trading companies where the crossborder
traders get their supplies;
• those who transport the products (and their families).
This means that the actual number of people who depend entirely or in part on this trade for their
survival is almost certainly much higher than the estimated figure of 22,514.
Table 7: Estimated number of people per site who depend on small trade
Site
No. of
days spent
checking
(1)
No. of
people on
outgoing
journey
(2)
No. of
people
on return
journey
(3)
Total
number of
people
(4)=
(2)+(3)
Average
number of
people per
day
(5)=(4)/(1)
Average
number of
household
members
(6)
Number
of people
who
depend
on small
trade
(7)=(5)*(6)
Bukavu 14 1554 31460 33014 2358 7.8 18394
Uvira 14 2520 4006 6526 466 7.4 3449
Cibitoke 14 708 531 1239 89 6.7 593
Arua 14 1488 1514 3002 214 6.5 1394
Overall 14
(average)
6270 37511 43781 3127 7.2 22514
30 See appendices 18-21.
31 The number of people on the outgoing and return journeys was checked on the days the interviews were held. The interviewers counted
the number of traders according to gender and type of produce being transported.