아프리카ㆍ중동

Malawi, Zambia and the Republic of Tanzania are LDCs struggling with multi-faceted development challenges including wide-spread poverty, poor access to education and health care, and gender inequality. Diversifying and expanding export bases and sustainable job creation are at the fore of these countries’ development agendas. To this end, governments have committed to more liberalized regional trade including through trade communities which offer, for example, duty exemptions, preferential tariffs and simplified trading processes. Despite these advantages, much of the crossborder trade takes place informally. The vast majority of these traders are women, who sell agricultural products and food staples, new and used clothing, and homewares. For these actors, ICBT is a lifeline; against limited work opportunities and poor access to essential public services, they are highly dependent on informal trade to pay for food, schooling and shelter. As a livelihood, however, small scale ICBT has low profit margins, is irregular and subject to shocks, and creates vulnerability to exploitation. Moreover, because women traders lack access to financial or physical assets, business skills and information, they are largely prevented from formalizing or expanding their businesses, trapping them in a ‘hand-to-mouth’ cycle of poverty and disempowerment.