Norms, Networks, Power, and Control: Understanding Informal Payments and Brokerage in Cross-Border Trade in Sierra Leone
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ICTD Working Paper 74
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 understanding 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 Research Fellow at the 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 and Somalia. Vanessa leads the ICTD’s new programme on civil society engagement in tax reform and co-leads the research programme on informal taxation.
Wilson Prichard is an Associate Professor at the University of Toronto, a Research Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies, Chair of the Local Government Revenue Initiative (LoGRI) and former Executive Officer 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 sub-Saharan Africa.
Samuel Jibao is the Director of the Centre for Economic Research and Capacity Building in Freetown, Sierra Leone. He is also an Assistant Lecturer at the African Tax Institute at the University of Pretoria, and the former Commissioner-General of the National Revenue Authority of Sierra Leone.
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