Parallel Market Conditions
A foreign ministry needed to understand humanitarian logistics through a conflict corridor beyond the formal coordination framework. Reporting traced routes, brokers, diversion and the parallel economy. The assessment distinguished channels capable of accountable delivery from those organised to extract value.
A foreign ministry assessing humanitarian logistics through a conflict corridor required understanding beyond coordination frameworks. Designated crossings existed; implementing partners were established.
Three border tribes had maintained passages inside family homes, connecting to relatives across the line. Goods moved through these tunnels until military operations filled them and consolidated transit through a single operator with presidential ties. Passage now required substantial payments to brokers on the other side. Drivers remained sealed in their cabs during unloading, their cargo transferred to hands they could not see. Aid entered formal channels but resurfaced on parallel markets at four times its original price, and fuel at fifteen. When banking collapsed, mobile networks became remittance infrastructure; commissions reached thirty per cent. Families who had lost livelihoods formed armed groups along the main artery. Drones filmed the diversions; no intervention came. Inside the territory, the economy had regressed to subsistence forms: clay ovens, firewood markets, rubble excavated for reuse. Profits left.
The assessment mapped which channels could deliver accountably and which existed only to extract.
The mandates below are drawn from hundreds of engagements over fifteen years, including work predating Periplus. Specific parties, jurisdictions and instructing firms are protected by confidentiality.