Norms, Networks, Power and Control: Understanding Informal Payments and Brokerage in Cross-Border Trade in Sierra Leone
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Journal of Borderlands Studies Volume 36(1)
Recent research has cast light on the variety of informal payments and practices that govern the day-to-day interactions between traders and customs agents at border posts in low-income countries. Building on this literature, this paper draws on survey and qualitative evidence in an effort to explore which groups are most advantaged and disadvantaged by the largely informal processes and norms governing cross-border trade. We find that variation in strategies and outcomes across traders can only be effectively understood with reference to the importance of norms, networks, power, and the logic of control.
Vanessa van den Boogaard is a Senior Research Fellow at ICTD and a Senior Research Associate at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto. She completed her PhD thesis on informal revenue generation and statebuilding in Sierra Leone, and has ongoing research on the topic in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ghana, and Somalia. Vanessa co-leads ICTD's research programmes on informality and gender and tax.
Wilson Prichard is an Associate Professor at the University of Toronto, an Associate Research Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies, Chair of the Local Government Revenue Initiative (LoGRI) and former Executive Director of the International Centre for Tax and Development (2020-2024). His research focuses on the relationship between taxation and citizen demands for improved governance in Africa.
Dr Samuel S. Jibao is the Executive Director of the Centre for Economic Research and Capacity Building in Freetown, and a member of the Investment Board of the National Social Security and Investment Trust (NASSIT) in Sierra Leone. He was the former Commissioner General of the National Revenue Authority Sierra Leone, and a former Senior Lecturer at the African Tax Institute at the Department of Economics in the University of Pretoria, South Africa.
