Four women-managed enterprises were successfully established in the four wards of West Makira Constituency, Makira Ulawa province recently.

This would be the first time women’s groups in the constituency are able to manage medium sized enterprises.

The businesses are part of Matavale Women’s Association, MWA’s, initiative to empower and include women in economic developmental activities and at the same time, enabling these women’s groups to save money from these businesses to support their ward’s communities in times of disasters. 

The seed money to start off the four business activities was more than sixty-thousand dollars

The four businesses are two fuel depots for wards five and six, a wholesale for ward 7 and cocoa bean purchasing in ward 8.

The enterprises were given their funds goods and materials in July and since then, the operations have started off successfully.

“We are slowly making good progress in our business and hopefully, we can expend to other villages in ward 7 to generate as much money in preparation for disasters” said Ward Wholesale manager, Matilda Ta’aigeni.

The two fuel depots in wards five and six are also seeing increases in cash flow and are increasing the number of fuel drums.

In ward eight, cocoa purchasing had started but are yet to fully establish.  

The managers of these operations were trained under the a UNWomen funded project implemented by MWA which also included soils improvement, small business management and Disaster preparedness, Response and Recovery training.

Similar business ventures will be established in Small Malaita under an AusAid funded project through UNWomen in which women will be managing the enterprises.

The UN Women Peace and Humanitarian project for West Makira lapsed in August which more than 200 women and girls were trained on agriculture, business management and the establishment of village disaster committees.