violence (DHS, 2014).<sup>3</sup> The large number of official actors at the DRC border, including those who are unauthorized to be there, creates further uncertainty for traders and prolongs their border crossing. For example, while only five government services were authorized to be present at the DRC border during the study period, more than 17 were operating in border posts in North Kivu (Doevenspeck and Mwanabiningo, 2012). The multitude of actors leads to more opportunities for harassment, delays, and potential confiscation if traders do not comply with the often arbitrary demands of officials (Titeca and Kimanuka, 2012). In addition to these authorized and unauthorized officials, traders also encounter young men informally hired by government officials to monitor the borders, illegally expropriate goods from traders, and demand bribes (Brenton et al., 2012).

# **2.2 Intervention**

The “Improving the conditions of cross-border traders in the Great Lakes region of Africa” project was designed by the World Bank’s Africa Region Trade Practice (now part of the World Bank’s Macroeconomics, Trade and Investment Global Practice) and implemented by the NGO International Alert from March 2012 to July 2013. The project aimed to address multiple constraints<sup>4</sup> , including the lack of information about rights, procedures, and tariffs among traders, as well as border officials’ lack of awareness about gender issues, and the need to distinguish between legal trading and smuggling.

> 3The conflict in the eastern provinces contributes to the high incidence of GBV: in North Kivu and South Kivu, armed groups perpetrated most of the GBV incidents (Government of the DRC, 2013).

> 4The constraints and conditions of cross-borders traders were examined through a survey in mid-2010 at four key border-crossing points in the Great Lakes region: at Uvira-Bujumbura (between DRC and Burundi); BukavuCyangugu (between DRC and Rwanda); Goma-Gisenyi (DRC and Rwanda) and Kasindi-Mpondwe (DRC and Uganda) (Brenton et al., 2012). In general, the survey results showed that cross-border traders were mostly poor young women (85% of the 181 surveyed traders were female and the average age of a trader was 32) engaged in trading small quantities of cereals, pulses, vegetables, and fruits, typically carried by head. The household income of most traders (77% of respondents) relied primarily on cross-border trading activity. As indicated in Garc ́ıa Mora and Roshan (2013), approximately 60 percent of cross-border traders in DRC and Rwanda were officially registered with the Government, implying that they were not seeking to hide from or evade government agencies. Nevertheless, many border officials held the view that cross-border traders were illegal traders, and treated them with abuse at the border. From the survey of 181 cross-border traders in the Great Lakes region, it was reported that 85% of traders were asked to pay bribes; 60% of traders received fines; 54% of traders were subject of acts of violence, threat and sexual harassment; 38% of traders were faced with rude border official’s behavior, verbal abuse, and insults; 38% of traders had their goods confiscated; and 19% of traders were forced to wait for a long period before crossing the border (Brenton and Isik, 2012). Payment of bribes followed a usual phrase from border officials, known by all traders: ” _sans argent, on ne passe pas_ ” (no money, no passing).

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