Map the Informal Grain Trade Between Niger and Kano

Significant volumes of millet, cowpea, and sorghum cross the Niger-Nigeria border at Jibia, Kongolam, and Illela every week, traded entirely outside formal systems. These flows are poorly documented, which means researchers, policymakers, and agri-businesses mostly ignore them when making decisions about food security and investment. The traders who run this market are predominantly Hausa and Kanuri men and women working on thin margins, relying on personal trust networks and mobile money rather than contracts or banks. When prices shift suddenly in Niamey or Kano, the most vulnerable traders take the loss. Smuggling routes, road tax extortion, and currency volatility all eat into margins that were never large to begin with. Using publicly available data (FAO GIEWS, WFP market monitoring reports, FEWS NET, Central Bank of Nigeria trade statistics, and any academic literature you can find), build as complete a picture as possible of this trade: volumes, key commodities, seasonal patterns, price spreads between Niamey and Kano markets, and the main friction points. Deliver a 1,500 to 2,000 word analysis, three to five data visualisations (charts or maps, produced in any tool), and a one-page summary of the two or three highest-impact interventions a development organisation could make. Good work will be honest about data gaps rather than papering over them, and will distinguish between what the data shows and what is inferred.