Improving women's business acumen in Papua New Guinea

Women from the Highlands of PNG marketing their temperate vegetables

International Women’s Day 2010 (8 March 2010) has the theme of equal rights, equal opportunities: progress for all. ACIAR works with women across the Asia-Pacific region, and an example of this is a project in Papua New Guinea helping to improve the business acumen of women involved in the horticultural industry.

The project is being led by Professor Barbara Chambers of the University of Canberra, in collaboration with PNG’s National Agricultural Research Institute, PNG Women in Agriculture and the Fresh Produce Development Agency Ltd.

Women are the backbone of PNG’s agriculture. What’s more, research shows they contribute the majority of their income to family needs. But to improve their incomes they need to gain business skills such as bookkeeping and marketing skills, as well as understanding how to access microfinance and other resources.

This was highlighted in a previous ACIAR research project on improving the marketing of fresh produce from the PNG Highlands as well as in a current project on improving the production and marketing of sweet potato.

Overcoming barriers

The PNG Highlands is a unique environment suited to growing high-quality temperate produce all year-round, which is a potentially important source of income for rural households. This project will focus on women in PNG’s Eastern Highlands, Morobe and Central Provinces.

The project will explore and analyse the barriers to women smallholders participating in the production and marketing of horticultural products. A particular emphasis will be on why some women are able to adopt and implement new knowledge and technologies in horticulture and why some are not.

Train-the-trainer programs will be developed for women leaders based on their community needs. Training workshops will be aimed at capacity building in models of governance, and on meeting training needs especially in microfinance, budgeting, business plans and marketing.

An additional aim is to support the development of the emergent PNG Women in Agriculture organisation.

Collaborative research

As part of the project Professor Barbara Chambers will run, in collaboration with Barbara Tomi from PNG Women in Agriculture, an interactive workshop at the PNG Women in Agriculture National Forum in Lae on 30 March 2010. This workshop will invite women smallholders participating in the project to tell their stories about what works and what doesn’t work in adopting new knowledge and technologies in horticulture.

Related links

Listen to Professor Chambers speaking with Linda Mottram of Radio Australia about some of the obstacles faced by PNG's women doing business in horticulture: http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/pacbeat/stories/201003/s2838081.htm