BY LORETTA BRIGIDIA MANELE
A study on Solomon Islands women’s savings groups in rural areas of Makira and Malaita provinces found that while women face difficulties in saving, others opt out simply because they did not have any surplus to save.
Associate Professor Richard Eves of the Pacific Affairs Department of Australian National University stressed that the women had very limited options available to earn cash and couldn’t save money because there just wasn’t enough capital circulating or prices of cash crops was just too low.
“A recurring theme in the rural fieldwork sites of Makira and Malaita is that it is hard, if not impossible, to save when there is just not enough money circulating, or the price of cash crops, such as copra or cocoa, is very low.”
Eves said some women they interviewed expressed being dependent on remittances while one voiced that she would be poor if it was not for her children who live in the capital.
He furthered that in Malaita, women spoke of how they found it challenging when trying to save with of them who stressed on how hard it is to save money when there is so little of it coming through.
