The Trade Domain within the FDW offers data that informs the FEWS NET Project’s reporting on trade flow patterns in a given country or region. The data covers informal trade across x country trade partner pairs over y commodities.
Source, destination, and reporting countries
We need up to 3 countries involved in the creation of a Cross Border Trade Flow Data Series:
Source: the country where the goods originated;
Destination
...
: the country where the goods were ultimately delivered; and
Reporting Country: where the trade flow was observed/enumerated, often at a specific Border Point.
Reporting country
The Reporting Country is the place where the trade flow is observed at the time of reporting. It is not necessarily the same as the country of the Data Source Organization that publishes the data, or the Source or Destination country. For example, the Reporting Country could denote a country of transit through which the goods flow from a Sourcecountry toward their final Destinationcountry.
Border point
TheBorder Pointis the exact place (often, but not always, a market location), within the Reporting Country where the trade flow is observed. It is optional.
In some places, a town straddles the border. In that case there may be two Border Points with the same name, but each will have a different Reporting Country. Only the Border Point for that Reporting Country will be listed for any given data point. For example, if the Reporting Country is Kenya, Busia, Kenya, may be the Border Point; whereas, if the Reporting Country is Uganda, then Busia, Uganda, may be the Border Point.
Consequently, we need up to 3 countries involved in the creation of a Cross Border Trade Flow Data Series:
Source: the country where the goods originated;
Destination: the country where the goods were ultimately delivered; and
Reporting Country: where the trade flow was observed/enumerated, often at a specific Border Point.
Data source organization
In addition, the Data Source Organization denotes the organization that publishes the data and . This is also usually specific to a given country, which is recorded in the Country field for that Data Source Organization. Again, the country of the Data Source Organization that publishes the data may or may not be the actual Reporting Country where the Trade Flow was observed.
Metadata
...
descriptions
The following are required fields for trade flow quantity data series:
...
period_date:
Monthly data collections use the last day of a month
Weekly data collections use the same day of the week each week
Formatted as YYYY-MM-DD
value: The quantity recorded for the amount in metric tonnes, individual items, or liters.
Example Trade Flow Scenario
...
: wheat (local and imported) to Rwanda from Kenya at Gatuna
Wheat is leaving Kenya (e.g., Country1) and entering Rwanda (e.g., Country2). Therefore, the Source country is Kenya and the Destination country is Rwanda.
...