External Environment

As this study focuses on women traders from three different areas; the remote area, the transmigration site and the urban area, it is not surprising that the impact of the external environment on each of these groups of traders is varied.

With respect to government support, there is little assistance for these Papuan women’s marketing activities, and even the majority of women traders in the urban areas do not have access to government support for their marketing activities. However, a few of them did get financial support from various government institutions. Government support procedures seem to be complicated for these traders, who are limited by their lack of education. As such, these procedures create barriers for them when applying for financial support. In addition, there is poor information flow on available government support, with only particular traders or groups of traders being targeted.

By contrast, the government programs in the transmigration site are focusing on farming activities. Many of the programs are focused on increasing the agricultural production and the introduction of new crop varieties. Thus, these programs have an indirect impact in stimulating marketing activities of these transmigration site women. However, government assistance is far more difficult to access by the more remote area traders and the results show that the more remote area traders did not get government financial support for their semi- subsistence marketing activities. Furthermore, although the government plans to make this area the centre of highland crops production, it has not yet set up any policy to assist the competitiveness of this local produce. As a result, the government support for these remote area traders is minor and very indirect.

Although there are some differences between the women traders from the urban area and the transmigration site, in general, both groups have good access to physical infrastructure, such

179 as roads and transportation, and physical markets. Both these groups of traders have no issue in finding spaces to sell at the physical markets, either in the building itself or on the ground outside the market, or in other places, such as public facilities and side roads. The government has supported them by distributing permanent spaces for these two groups of traders. In contrast, the more remote area traders have poor access to market infrastructure, which is in the urban area are where most of them usually sell their produce. The difficulty of getting spaces for selling in the urban market is because they are claimed to have less unofficial right to selling spaces than the traders who come from the urban area. For example, urban traders are thought to be more entitled to the spaces at the urban market, such as Sowi traders in Wosi Market and Meyakh traders in Sanggeng Market.

In addition to their difficulties in getting space to sell in the urban markets, problems with road access which connects the more remote areas to urban and suburban markets has a more significant impact on their marketing activities. Despite the fact that the road access is still poor, and the transportation cost is relatively high, these traders remain willing to sell in the urban area or transmigration site.

With respect to the financial environment, there are similarities in these three cases of women traders. They all lack access to the formal financial institutions, such BRI, Mandiri Bank and Papua Bank, which are actually owned by the Indonesian and Papuan Governments. In addition, the women traders from the more remote areas and the transmigration site have no access to microfinance. The lack of knowledge of the credit schemes of the institutions and how to get loans hinders remote area women from borrowing money from both banks and microfinance institutions. In addition, they may not be targeted by lenders due to their lack of collateral, long distance home locations and casual marketing activities. However, these traders self-finance, and it is not entirely clear whether they do so because they cannot access microfinance or whether they do not access microfinance because they self-funded.

The urban traders, who would be expected to have direct access to commercial banks due to their locational advantages, are in fact lacking in access to these banks credit schemes. Although they are willing to get loans from the commercial banks, their lack of collateral and non-permanent selling locations become impediments to accessing bank lending schemes. However, unlike the other two groups of traders, these urban traders do have an opportunity to access microfinance loan schemes. Regular traders appear to be the main target of this

180 microfinance. But, the microfinance schemes have high interest rates, which makes it difficult to repay the loan.

These urban traders engagement with the cash economy, and their interaction with other communities and their cultures, might lead to a change in the cultural and social values of urban Papuan communities. These women contribute to cultural obligations mainly to their close relatives. Likewise, the transmigration traders’ relocation from their previous home villages and their involvement in development programs leads to an awareness of other communities and practices, and this may have increased to their engagement in the cash economy. Even though they still have strong cultural and social values, they are more individual in their outlook and more focused on their productive work, as they have more responsibilities in this regard, due to their engagement in agricultural programs. In their case, the external factors have caused a shift in their cultural and social values. In contrast, the more remote area traders still retain strong traditional cultural and social values. However, they are beginning to engage with the cash economy. As a result, the external environment is beginning to impact on the social and cultural values of these more remote area traders, but this is very minor relative to the impact of the external environment on the other two groups of traders.