Across Africa, informal cross-border trade is a major yet often invisible pillar of everyday economic life. It is widely estimated to represent a significant share of regional exchange (often cited in the range of 30%–70%) and is predominantly driven by women (often estimated at 70%–80%). These women keep essential goods moving, stabilize local markets, and protect household food security. Yet many do so under conditions that undermine human flourishing: uncertainty at borders, exposure to harassment and arbitrary treatment, fragmented information, limited skills to navigate compliance pathways, and weak collective protection. In Burundi, these realities are especially evident along the Kobero, Gatumba, and Makamba trade corridors gateways that connect families’ livelihoods to regional markets and, increasingly, to the promise of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).

Pathways for Prosperity: Investing in Women’s Human Capital in Cross-Border Trade is a 12-month education and capability-building initiative (requested budget: USD 100,000) that will reach 900–1,000 women cross-border traders in these corridors in 9 borders between Burundi and Democratic Republic of Congo; Burundi and Tanzania and between Burundi and Rwanda. The project is explicitly education-focused (not research) and is grounded in a practical premise: informality is often not a preference; it is a rational response to high transaction costs, information asymmetries, limited skills, and weak collective organization. When women have reliable information, practical skills, and supportive collective structures plus safe channels to report abuse formalization becomes a voluntary, progressive, and economically rational empowerment pathway rather than an administrative burden imposed from above. Our guiding question is therefore operational and policy-relevant: How can strengthening access to reliable information, practical entrepreneurial and legal skills, and collective organization reduce the costs and risks of formalization and make it a rational choice for women traders in the context of AfCFTA integration?

The initiative advances AfCFTA’s inclusive ambition by translating continental integration into everyday capability and predictable rules for small-scale traders. It does this through three mutually reinforcing levers:
1) Credible, accessible information (reducing uncertainty and fear) where
we will deliver simplified, verified guidance on cross-border procedures, rights and obligations, and official fees where applicable, including clear orientation on simplified regimes such as RECOS and practical AfCFTA-relevant concepts explained in plain language. Information will be delivered through 5–6 community sensitization sessions in border markets, 5–6 community radio programs, and SMS dissemination, supported by 21 simplified brochures/fact sheets/visual materials designed for varied literacy levels.
2) Practical skills (turning knowledge into safer, more profitable action) where we will conduct 4–5 interactive workshop cycles that train women on: simplified business management (income/expenses, pricing, margins, saving routines), step-by-step formalization pathways (registration/licensing basics; compliance roadmaps adapted to scale), cross-border trade rules, negotiation, and women’s economic rights. Learning will be highly practical—built around real-life cases, role-play, and border simulations. A practical training guide in Kirundi will be produced so women can continue using the content after sessions end.
3) Collective organization (pooling costs and strengthening voice). We believe that individual capability is not enough when administrative and market constraints are structural. The project will support 3 training sessions for establishing or strengthening associations/cooperatives and improving governance, membership systems, and representation. We will facilitate 1–3 collective administrative procedures and negotiations with relevant authorities, customs/administrative services, and service providers so women can reduce fixed costs, increase credibility, and negotiate more predictable conditions collectively.

To ensure education leads to real protection and institutional improvement, the project includes two core accountability mechanisms:
- A confidential protection and recourse channel: an anonymous toll-free hotline and complaints support office that receive grievances, provide orientation, and support prevention of abuse. This mechanism will be survivor-centered, confidentiality-based, and connected to referral pathways where appropriate. It is designed not as a punitive system, but as a practical transparency tool that reduces fear and helps institutions identify recurring bottlenecks.
- Structured education-and-dialogue sessions with decision-makers: we will convene five policy-learning sessions between cross- border traders and public authorities (parliamentarians, relevant government branches, local administrations, border services). These sessions will be solutions-oriented and will translate trade facilitation commitments into practical actions with clearer guidance, improved predictability, better complaint handling, and where feasible greater transparency on official fees and processes.

Who we will reach and how we will select participants? The primary beneficiaries are 900–1,000 women cross-border traders, with priority to women with low capital and high vulnerability (e.g., those trading food and essential goods, operating frequently, and facing higher risk exposure). The project will also train 4–5 local female trainers (“Imboneza”) selected with community input for credibility, commitment, communication ability, and integrity. This train-the-trainer model is essential to sustainability: it creates local capability that remains when the project ends.
Implementation approach: practical, inclusive, and non-academic.

The pedagogy is built for real-world use: short modules; visual tools; repetition; real cases; coaching; multilingual multimedia communication (Kirundi, Swahili, local dialects) to disseminate the rules, amplify the voices of women traders, and promote greater public accountability and multi-channel reinforcement (sessions + radio + SMS + guide). No academic research is funded. Monitoring is strictly for delivery quality, accountability, and operational decision-making—tracking participation, learning uptake, progression through formalization steps, complaint trends and resolution pathways, association functionality, and outcome indicators such as savings habits and access to formal financial services.

Expected outcomes by the end of 12 months include:
• 7%–10% increase in formalization uptake among supported women traders (voluntary and progressive).
• 5%–10% increase in access to formal financial services (saving, mobile money, adapted credit).
• Measurable improvements in income stability and saving behavior through simplified management routines.
• Approximately 10% reduction in vulnerability to abuse, corruption, and insecurity (self-reported and triangulated through complaint trends).
• Tangible improvements in transparency and communication between traders and public services, supported by public-facing information practices and dialogue commitments.
Sustainability and continued impact after project end are designed, not assumed. The project leaves behind: a trained cadre of Imboneza, durable educational materials in Kirundi, a peer-learning structure embedded in trader groups, and a functioning complaints and referral protocol. We expect impacts to continue and deepen:
• 3 years after closure: continued peer-to-peer diffusion; active groups sustaining meetings and mutual support; continued use of simplified bookkeeping/saving routines; normalized access to verified information and recourse channels.
• 5 years after closure: stronger and more durable representation structures; a measurable shift toward predictable administrative practices; and expanded corridor-level replication within Burundi and the Great Lakes region.

Replicability is a strategic strength of this proposal because our model is built as a transferable replication package: standardized curriculum, simplified visual tools, Kirundi guide adaptable to other languages (local language), train-the-trainer manuals, hotline/complaints protocols, and a reusable trader–policymaker dialogue format. This makes the approach scalable across the Great Lakes region, East Africa Region and adaptable through regulatory and language adjustment to other African regional contexts such as ECOWAS, ECCAS, COMESA and AMU.

Partnerships and institutional anchoring: CDE Great Lakes will serve as lead coordinator and implementer, leveraging existing working partnerships with the Cross-Border Traders Association (ACTF), women entrepreneurs’ associations, and transport associations active in the target corridors. We will collaborate with Trade Ministry, local administrative and other local actors in our project through our existing working approach. These relationships will be formalized via MoUs and our existing partnership document (attach here to this application) to accelerate rollout, validate procedural information where appropriate, ensure legitimacy, and strengthen sustainability.
Risk management and safeguarding: Key risks time constraints for traders, varied literacy levels, misinformation, and institutional bottlenecks will be mitigated through flexible scheduling in markets, low-literacy materials and audio formats, repeated messaging via radio/SMS, and structured follow-up on dialogue commitments. Safeguarding is integrated through confidentiality protocols, survivor-centered complaint handling, and referral pathways. The project’s operating principle is “do no harm”: learning and formalization must increase safety and dignity, not exposure.

Value for money and budget logic: The USD 100,000 budget prioritizes direct delivery: training sessions, materials, radio/SMS learning, and protection/complaints mechanisms supported by lean coordination, monitoring for accountability (not research), and structured partnerships. The outcome is a cost-effective education model that produces durable tools and human capability, enabling continued diffusion and replication beyond the initial corridors.

In short, Pathways for Prosperity: Investing in Women’s Human Capital in Cross-Border Trade is designed to meet Templeton World Charity Foundation’s interest in human flourishing by strengthening women’s economic agency and dignity through education transforming AfCFTA’s macro-level ambition into micro-level capability, predictability, and opportunity for the women who already keep cross-border markets alive.