7 Key Insights from 7 Years of Economic Development in PNG

Anna Moegerlein, Deputy CEO

Since 2017, we have had the privilege of working with hundreds of tenacious entrepreneurs across PNG. It has been a humbling and deeply personal journey.

 

In part one of this series, we shared the context of our work and our approach to economic development in PNG. In part two, we’re reflecting on the lessons we’ve learned over the last seven years, and how these lessons might inform the future of economic development work with our much beloved neighbour.

Lesson 1: Selecting the right people is critical to program success

Handpicking the right candidates for our programs in PNG has been key to unlocking program success and igniting real, transformational growth, not only for the entrepreneurs themselves, but by extension, for their families and their communities

Our partner, PNG Women’s Business Resource Centre (WBRC), has been critical in this regard. They recruited ten incredible women into our Guria Women’s Growth Accelerator and recruited 100 women into our Coaching Program. We worked together to establish some ideal-participant criteria, and then WBRC leveraged their extensive networks to find women that matched the description.

We’ve learned that the right candidates are those who are highly motivated, open to learning and growing, and committed to the process – this may seem obvious, but it’s a critical first step for overall participant morale, and for program success.

economic development in PNG entrepreneur

“The selection of participants has been spot-on! We’ve all gelled with one another, and we’re serious about succeeding in business. We’re all at similar levels in our learning needs, and our business needs. There hasn’t been a moment where I’ve felt the teaching was not relevant. Everything has been beneficial, and I don’t feel anyone was left behind.”

– Guria Accelerator Participant

Lesson 2: Building authentic community is key to sector collaboration

The entrepreneurial journey can be a lonely one. Being part of a supportive community that ‘gets it’ is so important to any entrepreneur’s journey.

But not all communities are safe places to be authentic. Some communities model toxic behaviour that can exacerbate imposter syndrome. One female participant said to us that it was such a relief to be part of one of our programs, because she didn’t have to beat her chest and be a ‘Pawa Meri’, a strong woman who was ‘doing it all’. She felt that she could fall apart with her peers and not be judged for it. It gave her space to be authentic.

Our programs break down barriers between people, and create trust, intimacy, and a community of fellow travellers. We do this in an unconventional manner: We model Daring Leadership as facilitators, we use humour, we tell stories, and we are deliberately informal. We also design all our programs in line with Otto Scharmer’s ‘Theory U’ – from Open Mind to Open Heart and Open Will.

This U looks different for each program, but there are some common components. For instance, we often begin by inviting people to share their origin stories, this helps people ‘download’ past patterns, and see with fresh eyes. Being witnessed by others in a generative way also helps to disrupt the Voice of Judgement (VoJ). 

In other examples in PNG, our programs have helped to bring about collaboration in an otherwise competitive sector. This case study describes how a region went from highly competitive, to collaborating during COVID. Participants directly attributed it to our YuMi Tourism accelerator program.

Lesson 3: To facilitate sustainable growth, entrepreneurial support must tackle the core problems entrepreneurs face

Our programs in PNG have concentrated on accurately helping entrepreneurs assess and diagnose their enterprise challenges, foster trust, facilitate peer learning, offer relevant business education, and encourage practical application. By addressing problems head-on, we pave the way for meaningful and sustainable growth.

“[The facilitators are] experts, people-orientated, and are straightforward. Having skilled facilitators… showed in the high quality of the delivery and content of the program. They were easy to get along with, and I felt I was treated as an adult and a business owner, instead of being made to feel like I didn’t know what I was doing. I also greatly appreciated the directness about the weaknesses in my business, instead of sugar-coating what I could improve.” 

– Program Participant

A critical indicator of success is whether our participants have an increased ability to analyse their business challenges and opportunities and understand what’s really holding them back. If they grow this capability, we know they will be able to independently take action to grow or strengthen their business, long after our program ends. If they don’t grow this capability, they will most likely remain stuck.

This leads us to the next lesson.

Lesson 4: Inner development alongside enterprise development is necessary and powerful

 

One of the key features of our work in PNG has been our dual focus on integrating Inner Development with traditional Enterprise Development methodology. This is our InsideOut model. Our InsideOut approach to working with entrepreneurs takes a holistic look at both inner development and enterprise development, and truly helps entrepreneurs name the real challenges stopping them – from self-limiting beliefs to technical business problems.

We’ve had the privilege of bearing witness to people’s stories of early heart aches, failures, and successes that shape how women see themselves, and what they believe is possible for them. On top of this, in PNG where many women are taught not to trust their own judgement, a holistic approach helps to release some of these beliefs about self, others, and the world, freeing up energy for enterprise development. 

“Whenever I have a hard business decision to make that triggers a strong emotion, I can now feel that emotion, rewrite the negative story I’m telling myself, and move forward with reality-based options.”

– Program Participant

Our 2020 Coaching Program which utilised this new approach generated the strongest financial results we’ve seen to date. In a program designed to help 100 SMEs defend their income during COVID, two thirds of participants actually doubled their income, and we estimate the program generated 2.78m in additional revenue. The statistic we’re most proud of is that 95% of participants said they now believe in themselves and their business because of the integrated InsideOut coaching support.

“This program gave me the freedom to be vulnerable, to air my issues, to speak on my sadness and failures. I kind of purged myself. These things were then used to find better ways for me to develop myself, and my brands – we used them as bricks, from which to build a better foundation.”

– Program Participant

Lesson 5: We can and should transfer our method to PNG entrepreneurs

Alongside the coaching program mentioned in the previous section, we were funded to simultaneously train four local PNG women entrepreneurs to become business coaches. Three of these four women had also been participants in the Guria program. We were thrilled to receive the funding to achieve this long held desire, and our prior years of building trust and relationships meant that the work was delivered where it could have the most impact.

Over the course of these simultaneous programs, we were able to apprentice the Local Business Coaches in our method, as they participated alongside our team in delivering over 200 hours of coaching each. These coaching sessions (conducted alongside 13 weeks of individual training for the Coaches) progressed from observing our team in action, to leading parts of the coaching sessions themselves, to leading the sessions with our team as support.

This scaffolding of support was key to skill development and the development of self-trust. We slowly moved this scaffolding back and, by the end of the program, the PNG Local Business Coaches were leading their own sessions, solo.

During this time the average satisfaction of score for those being coached stayed above 9 out of 10, meaning there was no drop in the quality of the coaching offered.

Lesson 6: Locally led entrepreneurial support organisations are critical to expansion of quality support

Not only do we need to invest in training local Coaches, localising entire entrepreneurial support systems in the region to support thousands of women entrepreneurs is also critical. This is one of three key impact areas (below) in our new strategy, and we believe this is both a practical and an ethical move.

Traditionally, entrepreneurial programs have rarely been designed and run by the people they serve, despite the known benefits. We are committed to enabling more diverse local leaders, across Australia and the Pacific, to lead and shape the future of their local economies and entrepreneurial ecosystems. We are working towards a day when leaders at the grassroots have power, knowledge, and resources to support local entrepreneurs and policy makers to re-shape economies.

We’re a small team, so backing local leaders and organisations is a faster way to create impact. There is also a level of change and chaos in PNG that requires program leaders to have their finger on the pulse of change. Similarly, they must be politically connected to attract local funding. This can only be achieved through local leadership.

Our recent experience of training local coaches means we feel confident that it is possible to transfer elements of our method – our accelerators, our coaching – to local organisations.

We have seen that it’s possible to train up local entrepreneurs and we are passionate about the equity and power redistribution outcomes of this work as we support local organisations to improve sustainability and retain talent, building viable businesses.

Lesson 7: Transforming market access must remain a priority

Most of our system-level initiatives have focused on transforming market access for PNG-owned SMEs.

To date we have worked with large businesses (Carnival Cruise company and Porgera Joint Venture, a large gold mine) to facilitate more contracts for women-owned businesses. Before COVID hit, our award winning tourism partnership, YuMi Tourism Partners, helped to facilitate new contracts for community level businesses that were worth $1.5m per annum. We have also supported growth in the bilum supply chain, by working with multiple businesses along the bilum value chain. Through our support, one of the main bilum retail businesses in Australia are now selling bilum bags to Selfridges in the UK.

One of the benefits of this approach is that we are working to disrupt the barriers to business growth at a system level, rather than just building capability at an entrepreneur level.

We still believe there is a big opportunity to leverage the power of social procurement to support women’s economic empowerment in PNG, especially in the mining and resources sector. There are also other large businesses locally, like City Pharmacy, who are open to using their purchasing power to further outcomes for women and girls. 

A woman browses bilum bags hanging on a store wall.

The challenge with this work is that it is resource intensive, corporates are reluctant to pay, and the work requires our Australian team due to the high level of innovation and complexity. The advantage is that economic barriers are dismantled for the benefit of women entrepreneurs and communities. It is our belief that the benefits of transforming market access vastly outweigh the challenges presented, and that we must continue to champion and support system-level initiatives for change. 

These lessons we’ve learned over seven years of economic development work in PNG range from the personal and micro level, right through to network support and systems-level change. PNG and other nations in the region continue to remain close to our heart, and we are moving forward into 2024 and beyond with increased clarity about how we can best place ourselves to offer the support that is required, to ensure that economic development initiatives are not only inclusive of local voices, but influenced and led by them as well. 

In Part 3 of this series we’ll get specific about what we’ve learned at the coalface of business support programs since our work began there in 2018. If you missed Part 1, find it here: Advancing an inclusive economy in PNG: Understanding the context and our approach to economic development

 

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