Helping Women To Help Themselves

8 March 2012 (UNDP) - For the past 25 years, Varanisese Adiwati has travelled to the Rakiraki Town market every Saturday with produce from the family farm to sell at the market to support her family.

The 45-year-old mother of eight, who belongs to a galala (independent) farming community in Narua in the Province of Ra, farms the land with her husband and three sons, planting taro, cassava, vudi (plantains) and bananas. Each Friday, the family would pick and pack produce ready for the market. In the past, Varanisese also sold ota (edible wild fern) but stopped gathering them because of the long distance and difficult terrain she had to walk.

Varanisese’s journey to the market starts at 5am on Saturday’s in a van shared with other women travelling to Rakiraki. The gravel road ride takes the women to a small trading centre in Waimicia on the Kings Road, where they wait for a public bus that reaches the market around 9am. On arrival, she and her friends set up their produce outside the market waiting for customers.

For many rural market vendors like Varanisese, the weekly visit to the market is one of only two social events for the week, the other being a church service for the galala farming community. “We all live far from each other…this is one day we’re able to talk and share stories,” Varanisese said in between jokes. “Saturday is a better day to sell at the market.”

On a good market day, Varanisese would earn over FJ$50 and FJ$30 on other days. After paying her market fee of FJ$0.60, she would spend at least half her income on groceries. She also sets aside money for the family’s community obligations which includes the church, school and village projects. Like many rural women market vendors, Varanisese does not own a bank account.

When the market is closed following a natural disaster, like the flash flooding that swept through the Fiji’s Western Division in January, many vendors lose out on income.

“Rural women account for nearly half the agricultural labour force and are custodians of traditional knowledge about the land and their local environment,” said Helen Clark, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Administrator, on International Women’s Day. “Backed by small development investments, rural women can lead the way in building food and nutrition security for their families and communities, and thus in building resilience to future extreme weather events.”

She added that UNDP works with partners to support rural women and their communities to tackle many of these challenges worldwide.

As part of the Millennium Market (One Country One Market) Project, the UNDP Pacific Centre and the United Nations for Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women), have partnered to deliver the Strengthening Women’s Economic Security and Rights: Capacity Building Programme for Women Market Vendors.

“Providing urban fresh food markets, is a service provided by local governments to its citizens and a workplace where both urban and rural women vendors are able to earn an income,” said Dr Asif Chida, UNDP Pacific Centre’s Regional Millennium Development Goals Specialist. “Market stall fees paid by vendors provide a significant source of income for local governments but the standards of Melanesian markets do not reflect the revenue they generate for local governments.”

Through this project, women market vendors like Varanisese will be able to learn about their rights as market vendors including financial literacy training. Assistance will also be provided to strengthen the operation and management of the Rakiraki public market; support the development of a Citizen’s Charter for Public Market; and training on the use of citizen’s report/scorecard to monitor the market’s performance.

The four pilot markets for the Millennium Market initiative include Rakiraki in Fiji, Guadalcanal/Honiara City Market in the Solomon Islands, the ringroad market of Shefa Province in Vanuatu and the market in the Highland Province in Papua New Guinea.

By Sheryl Ho, Knowledge Communications Analyst at UNDP. UNDP in the Pacific works in 15 countries - Cook Islands, Fiji, Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu.

ENDS

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