LocationsTransforming Lives: Empowering Rural Women in Auki
September 10, 2024
Auki vendors accessing M-SELEN services to assist in managing their financial committments.
In the Solomon Islands, rural markets are the hub of communities. Last week, the Markets for Change (M4C) project team visited Auki to continue its support to the rural women market vendors that trade from Auki Market. The market is a vibrant place where vendors, and the general public meet, to sell their goods, and buy produce in exchange for income to support their families.
In Auki, Malaita Province, the market provides the much-needed economic opportunities for women. Just like markets in other provincial centers throughout the country, Auki market has the same familiar characteristics. The atmosphere is brisk with commerce as people both sell their produce while others shop. Products range from fresh and dried fish, to root crops, and garden produce. It is a typical Solomon Islands rural market.
It is in this market that more than 300 rural women market vendors, spend long hours trading and earning income, that they hope over time will improve the lives and livelihoods of their families, and generate wealth within the community. The capacity building trainings empowers the women and in turn lift the living standards of their own respective families.
In this story, Lucy Kirimoana, a 37 year old mother of five from Anoasa in the Highlands of Central Kwara'ae, sells vegetables from her farm at Auki Market. She also sells pork and taro (lakeno) cooked in bamboo, which she sends to be sold at the Central Honiara Market.
"Since I started selling at the market, I've been earning a significant amount of money, which has helped sustain my family's basic needs and livelihood over the past few years," she says. However, she admits, "I never knew much about saving. If I had, I would have a substantial amount of savings by now."
Lucy participated in the Money Minded training, which she describes as finally discovering a doorway she never knew existed. "The training made me realize how I should manage my market earnings. It opened my eyes to the importance of spending wisely and saving," she explains. Lucy is grateful for the opportunity to attend the training and is determined to apply what she's learned going forward.
Cathy Pearson, the Vice President of Malaita Market Vendors Association.
Cathy Pearson, the Vice President of Malaita Market Vendors Association, shared her experience as a market vendor. She highlighted the challenges that all market vendors face individually, especially when it comes to managing sales income, deciding what to spend on, what to save, and how to increase capital to further grow their businesses.
"I have participated in the Money Minded training early March of this year, and it has taught me how to differentiate between needs and wants, and how to save each time I sell at the market," Cathy said.
She sells plants and cooked food at Auki Market and expressed that increasing her sales is difficult because she's often working from the previous day's earnings. "Figuring out how to save and make that money grow is another hurdle I'm struggling with.”
Cathy had heard of the YOU Save product but didn’t know much about it—its features or that it was designed for the informal sector. Through the partnership between the UNDP M4C Project and the Solomon Islands National Provident Fund (SINPF), which offers the YOU Save product, market vendors were given the opportunity to learn about accessing financial services as another outcome of the M4C project.
"It was during the training that I realized the importance of accessing financial services for the informal sector, which includes us market vendors. If we save our earnings from market sales with YOU Save, it will grow with interest, and we can access the nano loan up to four times a year to support our capital for market sales."
Although she wasn't initially a member, Cathy has registered for YOU Save and has already started her initial savings.
"I will continue to save the money I don’t need to spend regularly with YOU Save and will use this platform to support my business in the future, especially in expanding my business through nano loans," says Cathy.
Rose Rarangia has a stall at Auki Market where she sells tailored clothes.
Rose Rarangia, a 52-year-old single mother, has a stall at Auki Market where she sells tailored clothes. She also shares her stall with other women who don't have their own spaces due to the limited space in the market compound. Rose faces challenges in selling her stock, as it depends on the flow of consumers in the market and the competition, since many women in Auki Market also sell tailored and second-hand clothes.
“Participating in the Money Minded training and the YOU Save Awareness program has helped Rose better understand money management, including how to spend wisely and save for the future. "Before these two trainings, I thought my financial management skills were sufficient, but I now realize how limited my knowledge was. My spending practices were overwhelming, and my clothing business wasn't growing significantly," she admitted.
With the new knowledge and skills she gained, Rose plans to apply them to better manage her finances, control her cash flow, and save with the YOU Save scheme to support her business in the future. She has also become a YOU Save ambassador and is committed to helping the SINPF YOU Save team register interested market vendors as members.
Rose expressed her gratitude to the M4C Project for providing such valuable training, which has enhanced her knowledge in simple bookkeeping and accessing financial services tailored for the informal sector like YOU Save.
The Markets for Change (M4C) aims to ensure marketplaces in rural and urban areas of Fiji, Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu are safe, inclusive, and non-discriminatory, promoting gender equality and women’s empowerment. Auki is one of our project sites in Solomon Islands, and this project is being implemented by jointly by UN Women and UNDP with funding from the Australian Government. The overall objective is to develop women’s individual and collective capacities to build stronger, more inclusive economies and societies.
The Economic activities in the marketplaces have a significant impact upon the economy and society as women control between 60-80 per cent of market place buying and selling, while less than 10 per cent of those who work in ownership, management, and security of marketplace structures are women.
Auki market vendors at the end of the YOU Save training.
The Role of Rural Women in Auki's Economy
Rural Solomon Islands is reliant on natural resources, and the agriculture and fisheries sectors remain the primary employers, with women contributing most to the non-cash subsistence economy. In Auki, agriculture and fishing are the primary sources of cash income for rural women. Selling fish that their families do not consume affords women, in some cases, to pay for their children’s school fees. The organizing, marketing, transportation, sales, and money management of these subsistence agriculture products and fish are solely the responsibility of women. In addition to these, they also play primary roles in income-earning activities such as shell selling, farming, and horticulture.
Other key money-making activities for rural women include small handicraft selling and selling at the market. Also, rural women are involved in informal settlement, in which they sew beddings and taps, weave baskets, and make shell necklaces that can be sold. Women are not only responsible for selling these products; some women are also caterers who are the budget earners in communities.
Skills Training and Capacity Building
Skills and capacity development are crucial for rural women seeking to participate in new markets. They are also important for women and men involved in established marketplaces, as sales techniques and good customer service are known to increase returns for vendors. By increasing the skills and enhancing the empowerment of market vendors, the program seeks to not only improve their livelihoods in the market but also increase their resilience and bargaining power within their communities.
Two categories of workshops have been delivered through the program:
(i) stakeholder skills building and reflection sessions involving key private sector actors and provincial and national stakeholders and
(ii) vendor training, conducted in the market setting and therefore the one with which this section is concerned.
To prepare for the vendor training workshops, the Market Vendors Association is consulted as entry points to the selection of the women market vendors to be trained.
Impact of Empowerment Initiatives
The impact of the empowerment initiatives implemented is multi-faceted. It has equipped women market vendors with the necessary skills to manage the markets, broker cooperation between male market managers and female market vendors, and in many cases, resulted in the election of women as market masters. The market vendor association is making a concerted effort to learn from women about their experiences while in the markets, and it is clear from their operations that they strengthen the capacity of women market vendors to speak in support of their own needs.
Based on consultations with market vendor association members and other stakeholders, and fieldwork observations, a number of indicators were identified to support the measurement of empowerment results especially on the increase in women’s participation in income generating initiatives, and in decision making on the use of income to influence family and household incomes.
Market Vendor Association (MVA)
The voice of market vendors, especially women, who traditionally have been marginalized in decentralized local government decision-making and national-level market management. There has be increase in leadership roles in the market vendor associations and the market governance institutions in which they participate. The M4C Project team works closely with the MVA to select women vendors to attend capacity building trainings. The MVA is also a voice for the marginalised women in the municipal markets, and they have been advocating
Economic and Social Benefits
There has been evidence in the increased capacity, knowledge, and awareness regarding women's issues, including market and family relationships. There is also strong evidence of improved confidence and greater leadership capacity amongst the women as they begin to participate more fully in economic-related activities and decision-making processes that impact their well-being and the integrity of their families.
The improved leadership capacity thus speaks directly to women's improved economic decision-making within their families as earning members. However, inflexibility issues regarding long hours worked by the women reduce time available for their children and lead to access reproductive health issues and reduced access to formal leadership positions of the market vendors.
The Project will continue to support the rural women market vendors, and also celebrate the small wins on the transformative changes taking place in the lives of the resilient women market vendors trading at the Auki Market.
The Markets for Change (M4C) project is an economic empowerment project funded by the Australian Government. In Solomon Islands, the M4C project operates in Honiara, Auki, and Gizo and Munda Markets. The project's goal is to ensure that marketplaces in rural and urban areas are safe, inclusive, and non-discriminatory, promoting gender equality and women's empowerment, and that women market vendors have access to and control over resources.
The Project contributes to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and directly contributes to multiple Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It supports SDG 5 on Gender Equality, SDG 8 on decent work and economic growth, SDG 10 on reducing inequalities, and SDG 11 on sustainable cities and communities. The project ensurees equality and economic empowerment for all, including men, women, youth, people with disabilities, and marginalized minority groups.
The M4C project is implemented by UN Women in partnership with UNDP and with support from the Government of Australia.
For more information, please contact:
Jilgina Kimisi, Project Associate, M4C Project on email jilgina.kimisi@undp.org and Vilisi Veibataki, Markets for Change Project Manager, UNDP Pacific Office in Fiji | vilisi.veibataki@undp.org | +679 3227701
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