Public Disclosure Authorized March 2017 Policy Note Promoting equity and managing conflict in development Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized “There is Security from this Place” Public Disclosure Authorized Promoting the Safety and Economic Vitality of Port Moresby’s Local Markets Lessons for Market Renovators David Craig and Doug Porter Justice for the Poor is a World Bank research and development program aimed at informing, designing and supporting pro-poor approaches to justice reform. It is an approach to justice reform which sees justice from the perspective of the poor and marginalized, is grounded in social and cultural contexts, recognizes the importance of demand in building equitable justice systems, and understands justice as a cross-sectoral issue. Justice for the Poor research reports are aimed at development practitioners, partner governments, researchers, and others interested in justice reform. 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Contact details Justice for the Poor Justice Reform Practice Group Legal Vice Presidency World Bank 1818 H Street, NW Washington, DC 20433 USA Email: j4p@worldbank.org Cover photo: David Craig/Worldbank 2 “There is Security from this Place” March 2017 Policy Note “There is Security from this Place” Promoting the Safety and Economic Vitality of Port Moresby’s Local Markets Lessons for Market Renovators David Craig and Doug Porter Acknowledgements The authors acknowledge support of World Bank Papua New Guinea (PNG) country office staff, in particular Steffi Stallmeister, Walai Tongia, Carol Evari, Serah Sipani, Craig Stemp, Ben Moide, Terence Ua, Eddy Uza, Laena Ricky, Ali Maro, and Margaret Ali. Rob Talercio (Practice Manager), Debbie Isser (J4P Trust Fund Manager), and Caroline Sage and Nicholas Menzies (Co-TTLs) provided crucial advice at several stages. Thanks especially to Rabura and Keke Aiga, Tony Miria, Anton Guken, Helen Illivitalo, Micah Yosman, Mark Gigmai, Peter Simbago, Francis Kanasi, Doreen Yark, Pitu Mapusea, Mato Posi, Mitchie Ilagi, and the many mediators and village court magistrates, community police, and market security people from across the city who took time to talk with us. Special thanks to Governor Powes Parkop, National Capital Development Commission, Dr. Eric Kwa and Constitutional and Law Reform Commission staff, Ume Wainetti and Enid Balong of the Family and Sexual Violence Action Committee, and Sam Geno and Bruce Kelly in the Law and Justice sector, and also to Royal Papua New Guinea Police leadership, including Jerry Frank, Bill Weraki, Andy Bawa, Jim Andrews, Francisca Paulus, and especially the Badili Police Station; Jeff Buchanan, Delilah Sandeka, Kay Kaugla, Steve Sims, Brett McCann, Mike Field; Richelle Tickle, Rod Hilton, Steve Hogg, and Anneke Outred. Peer reviewers were Susan Ferguson (AHC), Bernard Harborne (World Bank) and Lavui Bala (IFC). II Contents Acknowledgements.................................................................................................................II Executive Summary................................................................................................................ V Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 1 Markets, Security, and Urban Development: Learning from What Works ����������������������������� 1 A NEW POLICY ANALYSIS APPROACH: UNDERSTANDING EVERYDAY INSTITUTIONAL CAPABILITIES ������������������������������������ 2 Part 1/Phase 1. Markets in Crisis: Learning from Tokarara ���������������������������������������������������� 7 1.1 TOKARARA NEIGHBORHOOD AND MARKET AT A GLANCE.................................................................................................. 7 1.2 FUNCTION: ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITIES.............................................................................................................................. 8 1.3 FUNCTION: SAFETY AND SECURITY........................................................................................................................................ 9 1.4 BUILDING INSTITUTIONAL CAPABILITY: AUTHORITY FROM SELF-HELP AND LOCAL LEADERSHIP ������������������������������������ 9 1.5 OUTCOMES AND LESSONS.................................................................................................................................................... 11 Part 2/Phase 2. Critical Juncture and Intervention: Learning from Sabama �������������������������� 13 2.1 SABAMA NEIGHBORHOOD AND MARKET AT A GLANCE.................................................................................................... 13 2.2 FUNCTION: ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY................................................................................................................................ 15 2.3 FUNCTION: SECURITY AND SAFETY ..................................................................................................................................... 17 2.4 BUILDING INSTITUTIONAL CAPABILITY: VERTICAL AUTHORITY IS RESTRUCTURED ENROLLING LOCAL LEADERS......... 17 2.5 OUTCOMES AND LESSONS ................................................................................................................................................... 19 Part 3/Phase 3. Cycles of Growth or Regression: Learning from Gerehu ���������������������������� 24 3.1 GEREHU NEIGHBORHOOD AND MARKET AT A GLANCE.................................................................................................... 24 3.2 FUNCTION: SAFETY AND SECURITY...................................................................................................................................... 25 3.3 FUNCTION: ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY................................................................................................................................ 25 3.4 BUILDING INSTITUTIONAL CAPABILITY.................................................................................................................................. 27 3.5 OUTCOMES AND LESSONS.................................................................................................................................................... 29 Conclusions and Recommendations: .............................................................................. 32 When Renovating Port Moresby’s Markets, Where to Focus Attention ����������������������������� 32 Practical Actions and Recommendations for Market Renovation Leaders ������������������������� 33 Phase 1: Recommendations for Actions before Renovation ������������������������������������������������������33 Phase 2: Recommendations for Actions during Renovation ������������������������������������������������������35 Phase 3: Recommendations for Actions after Renovation...........................................................36 Annex 1: Note on Methods.................................................................................................. 38 Annex 2: The Three Phases of Market Renovation.............................................................. 39 Annex 3: Market Sketch Maps............................................................................................. 40 III IV “There is Security from this Place” Executive Summary This Policy Note presents an analysis of and recommendations on the ongoing renovations of neighborhood markets in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea (PNG). It is part of a program of work under the Urban Safety and Security Technical Assistance Activity that began in the National Capital District, Port Moresby, in late 2014 and is currently continuing in Lae, PNG’s second-largest city. This report is based on extensive fieldwork, interviews, and observations at three Port Moresby neighborhood market sites conducted during 2015: Tokarara (unrenovated), Sabama (renovated 2013), and Gerehu (renovated 2011–14) (see Annex I for more information on the methodology involved). Neighborhood markets are crucial for the economic vitality, safety, and social life of urban settlements. They need to be safe and secure areas to buy and sell, especially as women have a dominant presence in marketplaces, both as vendors and buyers. But they also need to function efficiently as markets, providing market sellers and their families with a daily income and buyers with fresh, cheap, and abundant produce, and they need to generate revenue to meet operating and maintenance costs. Port Moresby’s markets are by definition sites of economic opportunity. Yet, though all have some leadership structure, many struggle to enforce the rules and to access the resources required for safe, secure, and efficient market business. Recent renovations of a range of Port Moresby’s neighborhood markets have seen new citywide and national leadership emerge that has been able to mobilize the resources needed for renovation and to ensure that safety rules are enforced in and around market areas. They have also been able to bring together local leadership to augment community safety. Although some market renovations have taken a deliberately “gender sensitive” approach, in general, there has been a limited role for women leaders, despite the fact that the benefits from women’s political empowerment in these kinds of reforms elsewhere are well documented. These dramatic and powerful interventions have transformed markets, which are now far more highly regulated. One consequence has been that the range of goods sold at some of the markets has been significantly reduced in favor of fresh produce. Other goods that featured in the marketplace before renovation (hot food, snacks, clothing, manufactures, cigarettes, and especially betelnut [Tok Pisin: buai] have been removed and relocated to areas nearby. Renovations have also strongly discouraged men from socializing at markets, where they were frequently gambling, playing games, smoking, and drinking. These changes have undeniably improved personal safety inside market fences, but trade and patronage within the renovated areas have declined. As a result, it now takes longer for the remaining sellers, predominantly women selling produce, to clear their goods. To improve the viability of their businesses, some have moved outside the market where produce can be sold more quickly and at better prices, but the risks are higher outside too, and safety and security cannot be guaranteed. The safety of vendors selling snacks, cigarettes, betelnut, and more outside the market fence—often those who have relocated as a result of being expelled from inside the market—has been unevenly affected by the renovations. In some cases, they have become more exposed to violence, including from police enforcing the ban on the sale of buai. Some ethnic groups, especially Port Moresby’s Motu Koitabu peoples, also continue to feel unsafe in the renovated market areas. Promoting the Safety and Economic Vitality of Port Moresby’s Local Markets V Reduced commercial activity also means that renovated markets have not yet become economically sustainable. Fees collected fall far short of expenses. The costs of market management, cleaners, and security workers are being met only through personal commitments and a special subsidy arranged by high-level leaders; it is not clear that either will be sustained if the political leadership changes. Building on the improvements in security and market conditions in renovated areas, the recommendations in this Policy Note aim to make both the markets more viable economically viable and the activities in and around them more diverse and attractive to vendors and buyers alike. The Policy Note draws conclusions and makes recommendations relevant to the challenges faced by market renovators, be they government leaders and administrative officials, donor partners, or local people on whom market renovations depend for success, for each of the three phases of market renovation. VI “There is Security from this Place” Port Moresby Residents Discussing Safety around a Renovated Market Sabama used to be the most notorious, the settlement and the market. A “red zone”—you couldn’t go in there, or work in there. Tokarara Village Court official Before, [the Sabama market] used to be too crowded. Buai [Betelnut], smokes, marijuana, a lot of people, gambling, abusing alcohol, abusing the mothers [vendors]. There were holdups, raskols [youth criminal gangs], going way back, 70s, 80s, 2000s. It was a no-go zone for some people. Drunks, bag-snatching, unemployed youth. There were some conflicts in the old market, [ethnic] Wabags, Taris, Keremas. Buai was the main cause of the problems. Soon as we established this [refurbished market] here, there’s no face of those doing those [criminal] things. People are safe getting off the bus. [The Moresby South MP] built the outside security fence, helped to rebuild. Round the shops, he extended the fence. He helped to renew, to repaint the shops. He sealed the carpark. Community policeman, Sabama Before there’s no law and order. Now with people [market staff and security] picked from the ethnic groups, Engan, Kerema... We stand together and work as a team. You talk together, that’s your way to do it. Sabama market security staff People have changed a lot. It’s a mindset change. I think part of it is because of what the minister is doing, especially with the market. I think the market security make a difference; with this development here, people look after the community. You’ve got the community leaders here, the community police that makes a difference. Market customer, Sabama A lot of the former young guys in trouble, raskols, they have work now, they are inside [the community]. I am one. I’m inside [working as market security]. Former raskol leader, Sabama Inside there [the market], it’s safe. Outside, here, it’s not safe for anyone. Snack seller, across the road from Sabama market Inside, there’s plenty of security. This is how we travel, security. There’s no movement of criminals here. But the betelnut side [of the road], it’s not safe. Guys smoking marijuana, sometimes they come and “bighead” against the market. Sabama market security The buai sellers at the corner, sometimes, we just organize ourselves to push them back [away from the market]. In the morning, we are organized, we come here early, 5, 6 o’clock, and stand at the corner; as they arrive we push them back. In the afternoon, sometimes we’ll make a couple of requests to people from Badili [Police Station] to come and push them back. Once we’ve been there, later they see we’ve no pretense they will come back. If they are already sitting down, it’s harder; if we are community police, not regular police, they will go against us. “Ok, you guys come and feed us. We are just doing this to make our dinner.” Sabama community police The [local Motu Koitabu village] Kirakira people mostly don’t come in here. The place is changed; things have changed but you can’t change an adult mentality. They think they might get their bag snatched, ladies harassed. That corner there [across Gavimani road, including the illegal buai market] is bustling with life. You might get in trouble over there if you are a new person. The community police [working at the Sabama market] only go as far as the corner. Kirakira (Motu Koitabu) resident However, [Governor Parkop] has noticed that most of the markets in the Moresby South are always half empty “Sabama market is a good market but it is empty all the time. Vendors from Malaoro can move down to Sabama market. But the challenge is for the people of Sabama to change their attitudes and mindsets to attract vendors and customers.”1 1 EMTV Gordons Market to be Redeveloped EMTV News October 15 2015 http://www.emtv.com.pg/news/2015/10/gordons-market-to-be-redeveloped-2/ Promoting the Safety and Economic Vitality of Port Moresby’s Local Markets VII VIII “There is Security from this Place” Introduction Markets, Security, and Urban Development: Learning from What Works Box 1. Crime and Violence Trends in Port Moresby Settlements: Views from Above and Below We can’t see any reason why things could be getting better. The police are still in serious crisis. Crime statistics are hopeless, and murder rates are high. Corruption is everywhere, and institutions are weak. The traditional and village authority breaks down in the urban context, into entrenched ethnic violence. The settlements are still growing, they are still no-go zones and hotbeds of crime and violence. If you think there’s any settlement that is getting better, what’s its name? What could possibly be improving things? Security researcher, Canberra Are things better here [in Sabama, a notorious, ethnically mixed “no covenant” neighborhood in Port Moresby] than they were 10 years ago? Of course. Look around. Ask people. Do you see any raskol gangs here? No, you see a few drunken youths. It’s mainly rats and mice we are chasing now. How is that? We did it. The community leaders did it—we cut them off. Community leader, Sabama, Port Moresby2 This Policy Note distills work done during 2015 on of the central role of local markets as places where safety and security in ethnically and socially mixed different kinds of capital are produced, exchanged, neighborhoods and informal settlements in Port and accumulated.4 When markets fail to provide a Moresby, the capital of Papua New Guinea (PNG). safe and secure trading environment, the impact is The prosperity of urban areas depends greatly directly borne by the most vulnerable in terms of on the capability of local markets to create secure gender, class, and ethnicity, but the wider effects are and inclusive spaces for economic exchange. For felt by all city residents. decades, however, Port Moresby’s markets, instead of actually being observed and understood, have Crime and violence must feature in any story of been neglected or seen as zones of illegality, whose security around local markets. An investigation in unemployed migrants and youth pose crime and 2012 by the National Capital District Commission violence risks for all.3 This and the wider stigma about (NCDC)/UN Women Port Moresby Safe City urban settlements (box 1) have clouded appreciation project in six markets documented multiple forms 2 This report makes extensive use of quotations drawn from interviews during the research. These quotations reflect respondents’ views alone and should not be interpreted as official positions of the World Bank. 3 M. B. Goddard, The Unseen City: Anthropological Perspectives on Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea (Winnellie, NT: Pandanus Publishing, 2005). See also, for example, “PNG Population Growth an Immediate Threat,” Radio Australia, October 2, 2012, http://www.radioaustralia. net.au/international/2012-10-02/png-population-growth-an-immediate-threat/1023762; and “Population Growth Fuels Conflict,” IRIN, February 2, 2011, http://www.irinnews.org/report/94512/papua-new-guinea-population-growth-fuels-conflict. 4 Citizens create physical or economic capital as they engage in markets and invest in private and public assets. They produce cultural or human capital when they invest in education and urban identities. They produce and exchange various kinds of legal, political, and social capital as they maintain relationships, represent and defend their interests, and resolve conflicts with kin, other communal groups and neighbors, traders, service providers, and public authorities. Bourke argues that the marketing of fresh food is one of PNG’s biggest economic success stories, one typically undervalued and overlooked by government and international organizations. See R. Bourke, “Marketed Fresh Food: A Successful Part of the Papua New Guinea Economy,” Development Bulletin 67 (2005): 22–25. Promoting the Safety and Economic Vitality of Port Moresby’s Local Markets 1 of violence at each.5 Insecurity restricts women’s A NEW POLICY ANALYSIS APPROACH: access to economic opportunities, and existing UNDERSTANDING EVERYDAY INSTITUTIONAL policing and management have failed to stem the CAPABILITIES violence. But this violence and failure cannot be the whole story. In the course of this research, too many Box 2. “Yu yet cam na lukim” observers reported improvements in safety and security in recent years, and they were clear about [“You Need to Come and See”] why this was happening. Unless you go into an area, and know it, you can’t know what is going on. So, when people Some pointed to investment and jobs from a relatively long run of economic growth, others say, “These areas always looks rough, how can to business-oriented settlers driving out former people live there?” Well, there must be a raskols or to the ability of local leaders to prevent system in place, and you’ve got to know how the escalation of ethnic or other conflict through to ask the questions to find it, otherwise, mediation. Others pointed to the efforts made people don’t realize what is in there and by city leaders, together with market authorities working. It’s hard to describe unless you see it and surrounding communities, to upgrade market in specific cases. Mediator, Sabama facilities, environments, and management. This com- mitment has been unprecedented; at last count, 11 There’s a song about this: “Kerema yu no savi. of the city’s formally gazetted markets have been or Yu yet cam na lukim.” ”You don’t know Kerema are in the process of being renovated. [a Gulf Province town of mixed reputation]: you need to come and see.” Community The purpose of this Policy Note is to analyze the leader, Vabukori lessons from this experience. How have investments in infrastructure and facilities, management, and security made a difference in how markets function? What have been the impacts and how have these This Policy Note represents an effort to come and see been felt by the range of people—buyers and the system in place so as to build an understanding sellers, young and old, women and men—who rely of what is in there and working. What has been done on their local market? How can gender, ethnic, to date, where, and what questions and issues were class, and economic differences among vendors and of interest? buyers be more fully acknowledged in the process of redeveloping markets? And how might “market The first phase of research comprised over 240 renovators”—a category of people that includes city individual and group interviews, conversations, and leaders and officials, the police, market managers, observations with people in Port Moresby’s ethnically donor partners, and a host of local people on whom and socially mixed settlements and villages, including successful renovation depends—design, implement, Tokarara, Gerehu, and Sabama (see Annex I for more and sustain their hopes for vibrant, economically information on study methods). inclusive, and secure local markets? The research aimed to understand how well local markets were meeting their core functions and in particular, to examine the capabilities of institutions involved in governing market operations on a daily basis, as well as during and after renovation. 5 See UN Women, “Making Port Moresby Safer for Women and Girls,” Report on Scoping Study Findings (Port Moresby: UN Women, 2012), 6, 7. This report identified multiple forms of violence in Gordons, Gerehu, Waigani, Malaoro, Tokarara, and Hohola markets, finding that “55% of women and girls who participated in the Study reported that they have experienced some form of violence in the markets surveyed,” and that “64% of both male and female respondents reported witnessing some form of sexual violence against women and girls (SVAWG) in the markets and vicinity,” including several reported cases of rape. 2 “There is Security from this Place” Local markets’ core function is to provide safe and secure spaces for economic opportunity. Principally Case Study Sites this will be achieved through trade between local people, sellers and buyers, most of whom are Tokarara/June Valley: a market that has fallen women and many of whom have particular needs for into apparent dereliction, with no fence, formal security and safety.6 At the same time, it needs to management, or security. Yet it is still popular. be acknowledged that local markets play a number Although interrupted by police raids and of other roles, as places to congregate, socialize, conflict over control of the market’s buai trade, and maintain a host of relationships that people community leaders provide amenities, security, everywhere associate with the good life. and justice/mediation. This study has benefited from recent insightful Sabama: has had a grim reputation for limited research on markets in the Pacific7 The analytical safety and security, especially at its market. framework begins from the view that how well Things are changing, however, as new and markets achieve their core function depends on how maturing local leadership (community/ethnic, capable they are as institutions, that is, as active political, police) have combined to renovate bundles of rules, roles, and resources underpinning the market and find new ways to resolve the economic concession. As institutions, markets disputes and engage youth. need to efficiently and authoritatively 1) enroll vendors, sellers, managers, and leaders, 2) define Gerehu: a large mixed neighborhood (or and enforce rules about what activities (buying, group of neighborhoods) whose market had selling, recreation, etc.) may be done in and around become unsafe for trading vendors and the market, and 3) raise and allocate resources both customers. New leadership from the NCDC from and to support those activities. Moreover, and UN Women in the Port Moresby Safe City markets especially need to do this by recognizing program has transformed this market. It is that how these three core functions are performed is much safer, but still faces economic challenges always highly gendered. in the aftermath of renovation. Terms Defining Questions Examples in PNG Mixed Urban Settlements Secure, inclusive economic opportunity and What problems does the institution respond to? Core Function subsistence family income provision, largely by What is the purpose of the institution? women (local markets) Markets are economic concessions; their rules define specially regulated places where selected, Rules What are the rules of the game? safe economic activity happens, usually led by women Leaders (including women leaders), management, Who is enrolled and how? Doing what? Roles local authority figures (including law and justice), Benefiting how? police, market vendors, customers, youth Revenues, taxes and fees, market sales, vendor Resources How and by whom is it resourced? and buyer time (including unpaid family work), security and management costs 6 Urban markets in PNG, as throughout the Pacific, are highly feminized, with women traders comprising the vast majority. See UN Women, “Pacific Markets and Market Vendors: Evidence, Data and Knowledge in Pacific Island Countries, Literature Review and Annotated Bibliography” (Suva, Fiji: UN Women, 2011), http://www.academia.edu/8810213/Pacific_markets_and_market_vendors_Evidence_data_ and_knowledge_in_Pacific_Island_Countries._Suva_Fiji_U.N._Women. 7 For example, Y. Underhill-Sem and others, “Changing Market Culture in the Pacific: Assembling a Conceptual Framework from Diverse Knowledge and Experiences,” Asia Pacific Viewpoint 55, no. 3 (2014): 306–18. Promoting the Safety and Economic Vitality of Port Moresby’s Local Markets 3 Institutional capability is Defining Questions Evaluative Questions the sum of… Are market opportunities readily accessible, Efficiency How efficiently does it do what it does? affordable, timely, and sustainable (for women in particular)? Are markets and their leaders able to grasp Power and How well does it engage and include? together/organize rules (security), roles (including authority customers), resources (revenues, profits)? Are markets inclusive, enabling leadership of Outcomes and women and access of vulnerable people and What are its results/ outcomes and for whom? legitimacy generating timely profits/ revenues/ safety for all those involved? Capable market institutions need to be efficient in Sabama, and Gerehu to tell and analyze the story of two ways. First, they must enable individuals—again, renovation in three phases (see Annex II for a Table specifically women—to buy and sell affordably of the Phases). Each part of this note corresponds to and quickly on a day-to-day basis so as to provide a different phase of market renovation; the story of family subsistence. Second, over time, they need each phase will show the different mix of capabilities to ensure that there is a balance between the as described above. revenue generated by the market and the costs of maintaining the facilities, services, and safety it Phase 1: Ongoing crisis. The condition of most provides. Capable exercise of authority requires Moresby markets before their renovation, when that market institutions sustain pacts that grasp the market’s basic functioning (security and secure together (that is, engage and include) the authority economic opportunity) is far from optimal. The case of those in leadership roles (both vertical authority, used here to illustrate this phase is the Tokarara from the state and horizontal authority from the market. community); it also needs to ensure that rules reach8 and are observed by all and that resources are Phase 2: Critical juncture, intervention, and accumulated to keep the market and its vendors in renovation. The period when markets are undergoing business. renovation and when new investments are being made, new rules are being introduced and different The capabilities in efficiency and authority will arrangements are set up made to govern the market produce outcomes that can then be considered for and how it relates to the wider community. Sabama is their legitimacy. If markets are efficient in enabling a an excellent illustration of what it takes to successfully wide range of vendors and buyers—and especially renovate a market. women buyers and sellers for the most part—to operate safely and profitably, they will be respected Phase 3: Cycles of growth or regression? Changes as legitimate. In other words, outcomes will not be made as part of renovation will either be sustained seen as legitimate unless the rules are fairly enforced, or undermined. Renovated markets must adjust to irrespective of gender. their new situation in the urban political economy and consolidate their gains as safe sites of economic At any particular point in the life of a market and its opportunity, in cycles of growth attracting vendors, renovation, the challenges can vary. To illustrate, this resources, and leadership commitment. The case report uses the experience of markets in Tokarara, here is Gerehu market. 8 This note frames institutional authority in terms of grasp and reach, much as it is understood in terms of the “infrastructural power” of states. See M. Mann, States, War and Capitalism: Studies in Political Sociology (Cambridge: Blackwell, 1988). 4 “There is Security from this Place” Special note on context and markets and surrounding settlements.10 Buai also the conditions for success: sits close to the symbolic core of the public’s public investment, buai, and policing perception of PNG’s cities as disorderly, dirty places, Soon after beginning this research, it became with unsafe, neglected public areas (box 3). A large apparent that the success of market renovations urban constituency supported the ban on buai sales, was highly sensitive to conditions that could rapidly but by mid-2016, it was back in the markets as the change. Three features illustrate this most clearly. sales ban was lifted. Typically, local markets suffer from being underregulated and as a result, women First, successful renovations depend not just on vendors, for instance, face unrestricted informal sufficient resources, but also on their flexibility “charges” and other gender discriminatory norms and the speed in which and length of time they and practices, largely at the hands of the males who are available. In 2015, it was clear that the spate of manage and otherwise dominate the marketplaces.11 renovations under way in Port Moresby depended The imposition and then subsequent lifting and on two relatively new instruments of public financial modification of the buai ban underscored the management, namely, the District Services Improve- dramatic impact that regulation can have on market ment Program (DSIP) and its provincial/capital district vitality, showing how these impacts are immediately equivalent, the Provincial Services Improvement felt not just in the incomes of women vendors but Program (PSIP). DSIP grants, for instance, amounted in safety and security, both around the market and in 2015 to a K10 million per annum available for in the home. It soon became apparent also that investment by each of Port Moresby’s Open Member renovation can sometimes lead to the overregulation Members of Parliament (MPs). But, as this report will of markets and other unintended effects, including show, just as important as the quantum of funds is for the most vulnerable—women, girls, the poor—in the degree of discretion provided to MPs as to how whose name the renovation process is promoted. the funds are allocated and the kinds of expenditure they can cover. The speed and flexibility of spending Third, one knock-on effect of the buai ban brought actions possible under these instruments created home that the success of market renovations will favorable conditions for engaging people into the also depend on factors that lie beyond the reach renovations, imposing new rules and regulations, of most renovation efforts and, indeed, are not and staying the course well beyond the completion easily remedied by wider public policy. To enforce of the civil works involved. But it is seldom the case the buai ban, the NCDC’s police reserve became that instruments of public spending have these actively involved with the Royal Papua New Guinea particular qualities, and it should not be taken for Constabulary (RPNGC). As many observed, one granted that these kinds of funds will be readily wholly unintended effect of the ban was that certain available in the future. police officers were alleged to have become players in the buai market by reselling the confiscated Second, markets (and the women traders and substance. The raiding of buai selling sites by many vendors who rely on them) are also especially different policing units has damaged the reputation sensitive to the shock of rapid changes in of the police, especially after fatalities occurred at management and to the unintended effects of Hanuabada (a Motu Koitabu community in Port regulations that have not been fully thought Moresby) in early 2015,12 and also contributed to through. During 2015, the sale and public con- increased levels of insecurity within markets and the sumption of betelnut (buai) had been banned in surrounding areas. Indeed, many people interviewed the National Capital District. Buai is “by far the for this report expressed anger over this situation. country’s most important domestically marketed Nevertheless, the wider message is that renovations cash crop,”9 and the ban affected both urban depend on pacting between powerful players— 9 M. Allen, R. M. Bourke, and A. McGregor, Cash Income from Agriculture,” in Food and Agriculture in Papua New Guinea, ed. R. M. Bourke and T. Harwood (Canberra: ANU E Press, 2009), 286. 10 T. Sharp, “Following Buai: the Highlands Betelnut Trade, Papua New Guinea” (Phd thesis, Australian National University, Canberra, 2012). 11 Underhill-Sem and others, “Changing Market Culture in the Pacific.” 12 See “The Hanuabada Issue is Not About the Buai Ban, It is About the Enforcement of the Ban,” Masalai (blog), January 24, 2015, https://masalai.wordpress.com/2015/01/24/the-hanuabada-issue-is-not-about-the-buai-ban-it-is-about-the-enforcement-of-the-ban/ Promoting the Safety and Economic Vitality of Port Moresby’s Local Markets 5 political, administrative, formal, and informal—and any reforms that proceed without securing real commitments from the police are unlikely to succeed. Box 3. Betelnut [Buai] and (Male) Marketplace Violence It’s always about buai. The fighting. There’s always a group who want to control the buai market. When they get drunk, they like to complain about the other people who come in. So a Wabag man is here, from here, but then he will also go outside and get his family from Wabag to come in and sell too. And the Wabags are selling cheaper, and it brings the price down—they want to get all the customers. So, the others don’t want the outsiders to come and steal their customers. And they try to challenge [the newcomers], physically. They kick over the stall. And then the situation becomes worse. The family come and join, and the fight gets going. Tokarara vendor Safety and security here is not guaranteed; the police come in any time. The police drive into the market and start chasing market buai sellers. They flee and take cover around us, then police come to our table and destroy our goods. We all run away leaving our things. Tokarara female snack vendor 6 “There is Security from this Place” Part 1/Phase 1. Markets in Crisis: Learning from Tokarara 1.1 TOKARARA NEIGHBORHOOD AND MARKET infrastructure. NCDC security was withdrawn, and AT A GLANCE the market stalls retreated to behind the previous Tokarara, with a population of roughly 50,000,13 market fence line. The fence was still partly intact including June Valley and the GoMoSaSePo14 settle- when UN Women did their preliminary assessment ment, is an ethnically mixed area that combines of the market in 2010, but it is now gone, bar one informal settlement and working class housing along shard to the rear of the market. Tokarara ranked with corporate enclaves for better-off residents. third for violence against women, and first for Tokarara market has served the local neighborhoods violence against men16 (see Annex III, Tokarara as a fresh produce market since the 1960s when Market Sketch Map). the suburb developed.15 In the mid-1990s, a series of accidents and violent events marked a turning In 2015–16, Tokarara market was at a low ebb. point. In 1996, when the market had spilled out onto Investment by the NCDC in market security had the road front, a car accident resulted in revenge ceased, and the market fence no longer protected attacks that saw stallholders killed. Attending police the market perimeter. The market was in long-term fought with vendors and destroyed much of their crisis; still a major “buai and cigarette” market with some hot food and fresh produce, but there was also decayed infrastructure, no obvious leadership or management, and regular violence related to buai. Yet buyers and sellers continued to do business in daily and weekly routines, and livelihoods were being generated. Recognized local men, some living in the market, were paid by informally collected fees to clean up the rubbish, which was hauled away by an NCDC contractor. Security of a kind worked along similar lines, bolstered by the regular presence of Village Court magistrates, a female court clerk, and male Peace Officers [court bailiffs]. Clearly there was a “system in place” at Tokarara, which sustained some order. Yet although the market was safe enough, even enjoyable for some, including men and women, school pupils, and middle class residents, it was felt to be insecure by others. The Tokarara market fact that Tokarara’s market was a known spot for Photo: David Craig/Worldbank selling buai meant that from late 2013, it became a major site for policing, which transformed but did not displace the trade. 13 National Statistical Office, “National Population & Housing Census 2011: ‘Count Me In’” (Port Moresby: National Statistical Office, 2013). 14 GoMoSaSePo is an abbreviation of Goroka, Morobe, Simbu, Sepik, Popondetta, all points of settler origin. 15 The 1966 census showed the Moresby population expanding rapidly from 24,730 in 1960 to 41,848 in 1966. Reported in Commonwealth of Australia, “Territory of Papua Report for 1970” (Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia, 1970). 77. 16 UN Women, “Making Port Moresby Safer for Women and Girls.” The six markets surveyed were Gordons, Gerehu, Tokarara, Waigani, Hohola, Lareva, and Malaoro. Promoting the Safety and Economic Vitality of Port Moresby’s Local Markets 7 1.2 FUNCTION: ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITIES Box 4. Tokarara Market Daily/Weekly Routine and Patronage17 • Trade at the beginning of the week is slow, the end is busiest. Sundays are quiet. • The morning: 5:30–8 a.m. 50–90 vendors (around twice that of Sabama, excluding the Sabama buai site), selling breakfast/convenience cooked food, buai to people on their way to work/ school/study. Customers in the market at 7:30 a.m.: 300 (Monday), 320 (Wednesday, Friday); the majority are males earlier in the morning, with heavy buai sales from around 20 vendors. • The middle of the day slow time: 35–80 vendors, around 100 customers at 12 noon, for produce, cigarettes, marijuana, hot food, socializing. Buai sellers often dispersed by late morning, but sales continue from other stalls. Small majority of women customers. • The evening peak (especially at the end of the week): 80–150 vendors (around 50 percent more than Sabama), 250–300 buyers at 5 p.m., with the largest numbers coming and going between 4:40 and 6:30 p.m.; a significant majority are male. Students and schoolchildren, people finishing/ coming home from work, buying the day’s food on the way. Chicken, vegetables, evening meal herbs, convenience snacks (cucumbers, cans, fried food, hot food). • Unlike better-fenced markets, vendors cannot leave goods on site. Various adaptive measures are taken, including purchasing wholesale only small amounts of fresh vegetables daily; heavy discounting at day’s end; storage at home or in adjacent houses for a small fee. The market was providing economic opportunities things on the side. For them, informal arrangements (box 5), but the appeal was also strong for males provide enough security for the market to remain who congregate in different areas of the market for an attractive place, but their presence and activities buai and gossip with friends, perhaps selling a few create fear and insecurity for others. Box 5. Opportunities at Tokarara People look at this place, they don’t see us. They don’t see this place, they only see dirt and rubbish, buai and young guys staring at them... Tokarara is the best market; we love it. People here are friendly. We are human beings down here! This is our market! Male market customer This is a place for being with friends, for sitting with friends. When someone is looking for someone, they’ll hear where they are at the market. It’s how we are. It’s good. We have a mix: mostly Highlands, but some Papuans. …They are happy to sit [with their produce] out the back; they don’t fight over space. Woman market regular What’s good about this market? First, the food is fresh. Food must be fresh, because fresh food sells faster. If it’s not fresh, you are forced to sell it at a discount. The vegies here come straight from Gordons [wholesale market], they sell fast. Second, buai. Buai is how people here live; you can sell quick. Early morning, already you have made enough for the day. Youth selling marijuana 17 A census of market vendors and customers was taken at 7:30 a.m., 12 noon, and 5 p.m., Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. 8 “There is Security from this Place” 1.3 FUNCTION: SAFETY AND SECURITY There are plenty of stories of youth and minor crime Box 7. Basic Self-Help in Security at (pickpocketing, bag snatching, public drunkenness, Tokarara Market harassment of stallholders) in the market space and of fights over buai sales, but the market lacks the dire People are sick and tired of it, the violence, reputation that Sabama market had before it was the thieving, pickpockets, the people who renovated (box 6). want to make trouble. They are not always there at Tokarara market. But if they do come, it’s not safe, even for them. The local public Box 6. “The Market is Okay, but…”: forget about the police, and they do it on Safety at Tokarara their own. “We stay here! You like it or not! You do it again, we’ll bash you.” The whole I think look back, since 2013, 14, 15, it’s better public will go for the person: We say “Wanpela now. Before that there were too many raskols. taim ol holim yu, em pinis blo yu” [when the But they’ve gone. Some, they killed them: crowd have hold of you, you’re done for]. they die! Now, it’s a very nice place here. People are often nearly killed; out in a normal Woman vendor suburb [outside Tokarara], people would be dead. Market focus group, Tokarara The Tokarara market is dominated by Eastern Highlanders, many of them live at Goroka Lodge [neighborhood]. The market is okay, but young men from the community come Vendors and customers who are not known are and disrupt the market when they are drunk. regarded with suspicion. Locals, including children, They come and collect fees when they are not (box 8) will combine their efforts to surveil or expel supposed to. They also come and ask for free outsider threats, thus co-producing a form of security based on identity. Conversely, outsiders (including cigarettes and sometimes get free buai too. police) often use their anonymity to raid the Tokarara resident market. Scuffles, fights, and full-scale ethnic battles We always tell our pupils in the morning, emerge when outside actors try to muscle into the don’t go through the market, but a lot of buai market, but newcomers also have multiple children want cooked food, and it’s hard for possibilities for making their way in, through multiple us to stop them. People do hold up small urban identities involving family, friendship, broad ethnic group, and/or local street residence. boys, the girls are all scared walking through there. We are always looking around, afraid. I don’t think there’s anyone providing security in there. Local school teachers Box 8. Security from Inclusion in the Community It’s when new people come here, people from 1.4 BUILDING INSTITUTIONAL CAPABILITY: outside. They might have relatives here, and AUTHORITY FROM SELF-HELP AND LOCAL they come to sell buai. You know there’s going LEADERSHIP The economic opportunity and security achieved in to be trouble. Someone will get drunk, he’ll Tokarara market is co-produced by the community walk past their table, you know, and give it a itself (box 7). Although this can involve direct action, little push—buai on the ground. And then it it is not simply vigilantism but is instead linked to starts, and sometimes it will involve the whole wider personal security in Tokarara, which depends neighborhood. There was one fight, it on being known within the local communal order, involved two groups, both from Goroka on having savi pes [a known face], and on sustained [Highlands], one from June Valley, the other investment by local leaders. from down [toward Waigani]. Hundreds involved, all from a small buai fight. It all comes back to buai. Market regular Promoting the Safety and Economic Vitality of Port Moresby’s Local Markets 9 There is no shortage of public will to produce security and safety at the market, nor is there a lack of involved community leadership. Table 1. Grasping of Local Authority at Tokarara Market Leadership, Experience, Connections Leaders Active Village Court Business in Governing Community/ Official/ Church Public Lives at Owner/ Tokarara Market Ethnic Leader Mediator Leaders Servant Market Manager Matthew √ √ √ √ James √ √ √ √ Frank √ √ Poso √ √ Micah √ Chen √ Market-related leadership reaches out horizontally on several sources of local authority and fiercely across the community and includes many ethnic assert that they govern this space unaided (box 9). leaders, as well as local law and justice actors. As Indeed, as will be shown, their reach vertically, to table 1 depicts, local leaders who personally commit police, Village Courts, municipal authorities, and their time to governing the market space each draw leadership, is quite uneven. Box 9. “We are Doing All This Ourselves” This market we control ourselves; it’s not run by NCDC. We are doing all this ourselves. It’s well established already. People here assist themselves. We take responsibility, everybody is responsible. We charge fees: 1 kina [US$0.33]. There’s no argument about paying that tax. We have a common concern for the market. When the market cleaners go round and collect, we don’t harass them. Vendor There is security from this place. There is no “official” market komiti [committee], only [the Village Court Peace Officer] and myself. We are there all the time because we’re working at the Village Court; when I’m not busy, I always come down. We are always the first on the spot if there’s trouble, especially Sundi. That’s the komiti, there! Village Court official The impact of public order from linked to market takings, swearing or slander among the Village Court stallholders) and has a respected profile in creating People involved in mediation and the Village Court public order. The female court clerk estimated are actively enrolled in creating law and order in that 40 percent of the cases they heard had some the public market. The Tokarara Village Court, connection to the market (box 10). Male elders, which meets every Monday toward the rear of the court officials (including peace officers who act as market site, considers many cases related to market Village Court bailiffs), local mediators, and market activities (such as drunkenness and fighting, violence users themselves handle most violent disputes. 10 “There is Security from this Place” Box 10. Mediators in the Market: Village Court Officials Talk about Public Order at Tokarara Market [The market] belongs to all of us. I say, “You didn’t bring this piece of land from outside. So you can’t say ‘no’ to this one or that one. It didn’t belong to your father’s grandfather.” We are very much aware as to the groups in the market. We take it on ourselves to mediate; we live together with them, we know them, we know those who only survive by selling betelnut. Lots of market issues come up [in mediation]: stealing, market spaces, jealousy. We have to go in between and make them understand competition in the market is a good business thing. If one person dominates the market it’s not good. We try to create this environment; people accept it with glee. But a stupid idiot with two cartons of beer can dismantle it all. The market’s safe on Mondays, because we [the Village Court people, magistrates, clerk] are there. Mark [the Village Court chair] is saying all the time, “this is a public space.” Ok, but it doesn’t always get in. 1.5 OUTCOMES AND LESSONS Box 11. The Limits of Informally Grasped, “Horizontal” Local Leadership Inclusive security requires vertical as well as horizontal authority We the people are running it. The leaders here For all of the efforts local leaders put into maintain- are men of the community, community leaders, ing security and economic opportunity, the market from Kerema, Goroka, Papuan, Highlands. But remains vulnerable because it lacks strong links the government doesn’t recognize us; we put to higher level authorities and pacts with political our lives at risk, so government should do leaders. As a result, the market does not have the something. They should put on some kind of physical capital needed to reinstate the market community watch here, get five young boys to fence (or to undertake any upgrading of facilities), watch the market, government should give nor is there budget to pay for formal security. them a uniform, youth looking after their own Without strong vertical links to the police or political streets. The community rely on this market: leadership, it is difficult for market managers to they need proper fencing down here! So restrict trading activities or to curtail raiding by people can do their daily work without too criminals or the police. much cost. In 2012, right here, the governor came, big meeting, and promised we would Although Tokarara market shows how local leaders have a new market. Well, here we are! can try to grasp together the authority to create security through horizontal (that is, across local Market regular community) links and pacts, it also shows the need I mediate police brutality, family problems, for effective links to vertical authority—to leadership fatherless, motherless children. I take part in able to enroll all local actors and impose a new many things, I have a lot on the agenda. It’s regulatory capability and to mobilize public funding. very, very upsetting for us when sometimes the Even a Village Court magistrate (see box 11), with police don’t do their job properly. There’s no strong local respect and the formality of his office reaching to the vertical authority of the justice fence at the market, so it’s hard for us to do system, lacks the capability to deal effectively with anything about the police here. They just come the police. here and help themselves. They come from all over Moresby; the market committee get beaten up. Community leader Promoting the Safety and Economic Vitality of Port Moresby’s Local Markets 11 Vertical authority and the regulation of Box 12. Limits of the Peace Officer and policing, buai, and violence The magistrate’s remark that it has proven difficult Privately Contracted Policing: to grasp vertical authority is demonstrated in the Peace Officers Speak policing arrangements at Tokarara market. The lowest We are only known in our own area, we might official policing presence, the locally appointed subject ourselves to unnecessary danger if we Village Court peace officers, lack support from even attempt to serve a summons outside of our police at the privately funded supermarket “cop area. Especially because we do not have shop,” the police post at the adjoining supermarket, as well as from the Waigani police, who seldom uniforms like police so people will not know come to the market itself. Meanwhile, mobile police that we are peace officers [Village Court from outside Tokarara often raid the market many bailiffs].The cop shop guys, they stay in the cop times in a single day. shop. Every time we ask them will they come, they will say they need to get authorization The Village Court peace officers’ embarrassment at from the commander at Waigani. So, they will their lack of reach speaks well of their desire to be be there for the supermarket, because he more effective than circumstances will allow. In the pays, but not for the community, for the end, however, the reach of regulation at the Tokarara market, even though they are the RPNGC market during this study was limited primarily by the [official police]! Because they are paid to look fact that one portion of the market—the buai trading after the supermarket. If you have money, place—was deemed illegal. everything is possible. Box 13. The police, Buai, and Insecurity: Market Regulars’ Descriptions Since the buai ban, [the sellers] know they’re risking all their money to bring it and sell it. It’s over K 1000 for a big bag; if they are caught, they’ll make a big loss. Right now, it’s only the strongest buai sellers that are operating. Others just gave up; once they were caught, bags gone, they gave up. Well, yes, the police been here several times this morning already. It’s different units, each one different; they from all over. So they come here and raid the buai sellers. We don’t know where they are from, but it’s not here. Headline lessons: Phase 1 Learn about what is there and working already in the existing market: no matter how bad it looks, there is a system in place… • Who can contribute knowledge about making the market safer: vendors and buyers, especially women • Who is selling what at what times of the day and making a good daily income • Why people come to the market (food and other “uses”), and who is currently selling or buying outside but would like to be included • How is the market currently being managed, what revenue is raised, who pays, who receives, and who uses the revenue • Who is helping to make the market safer: community leaders, vendors, effective or potential market managers 12 “There is Security from this Place” Part 2/Phase 2. Critical Juncture and Intervention: Learning from Sabama 2.1 SABAMA NEIGHBORHOOD AND MARKET Sabama’s first residents are now grandparents. AT A GLANCE Their children, many of whom as youth added Sabama was established in the 1960s as a low/ to the reputational problems that Sabama later no covenant neighborhood18 on state land to the experienced, are now mature adults. As in other southeast of the city. After a slow start, its population settlement neighborhoods, Port Moresby’s housing grew rapidly and is today ethnically mixed. Eastern crisis has meant that many formal sector employees Highlanders joined Kerema, Gulf, and Goilala now live in Sabama, often in extended families. people and live adjacent to (indigenous) Motu Former raskol gangs have not institutionalized but Koitabu communities, especially Kirakira. Sabama’s have been largely overcome by a combination of reputation as a rough and violent neighborhood Eastern Highlander communal hegemony and the characterized by raskol gangs and ethnic conflict maturing of both youth leaders and a range of other grew rapidly, alongside its even more infamous institutions (church, sports, schools, local mediation). neighbor, Kaugere. Census figures from 2011 put the Crime and violence certainly remain issues, but by population of the Kaugere/ Kirakira/ Sabama area at many local accounts, overall security in Sabama has 20,759, up 25 percent from 2000.19 been improving for some time (box 14). Box 14. Community Leadership and Market Safety I don’t actually think there have been major problems in [Sabama] with law and order for some time now. We had minor problems in here, Christmas, New Year. But we did work together as a team, and tried to minimize law and order problems in the community. [In] 2008, 9, we had the Community Development Committee. There are 29 ethnic groups here in Sabama, mostly looking after themselves. The population is growing, but really there are no enemies here: the groups are friends, even best friends now. We are combined. We can come together, brainstorm, and make a toksave [announcement] to the people. We mediate if there’s trouble. There are no bigheads now. Young people, raskols still come up, but we are on top of them. There used to be gangs, but we cut them off. We cleaned up this place; we are happy to see it this way. Community police Until the early 2010s, Sabama’s market was a Annex III). Market fees collected were not circulating notorious “Phase 1” site of public disarray (box back to market maintenance by the NCDC. Market 15), resembling other buai and cigarette markets managers, on the NCDC payroll but irregularly paid, like Tokarara. A scattering of small wooden tables were also accountable to the Moresby South Markets and seats, with clusters of waiting people and sun Board, which, in turn, was ambiguously accountable umbrellas across a dusty, unfenced site (see Image to both the NCDC’s markets division and the local 1: Pre-Renovation Sabama and the sketch map in MP. A different NCDC agency employed private 18 Low/no covenant land has few requirements about the quality of housing built on it. Self-help building is encouraged. 19 National Statistical Office, “National Population & Housing Census 2011. Promoting the Safety and Economic Vitality of Port Moresby’s Local Markets 13 security guards who had very little accountability to market managers. Despite the apparent chaos, the market was packed in the evenings and toward the end of the week. Buai, cigarettes, and drinks were sold in the road front, and fresh food sellers were located in the rear. Hot cooked food (fried fish, baking, breadfruit) was available on-site, which was popular with people looking for breakfast en route to work or school. Sabama Market Pre-Renovation. Photo:David Craig/Worldbank Sabama Market 2. Sabama Market 14 “There is Security from this Place” 1 patterns of crisis have been overtaken by the entry Box 15. “I have fled for my life while shopping of new actors, leading to new rules and resources. in [pre-renovation] Sabama.” The market site, already specially marked as an I witnessed arguments over market spaces, economic concession, provided a great opportunity tables and goods being overturned, vendors for a discrete project, where leaders were able to threatened with knives for lowering their focus their efforts and pact together to apply special prices. Even buyers are harassed for buying resources and reach specified outcomes. This inter- from vendors of their choice for more quantity vention has fundamentally changed the market’s and lesser prices. And in all these cases, the capability in terms of function, efficiency, authority, perpetrators are Highlanders. Kirakira [Motu and legitimacy. Koitabu] people don’t sell in there. Pick- pocketing and petty crimes in and around 2.2 FUNCTION: ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY Located at the main intersection and bus stop Sabama are mainly caused by [ethnic] Goilalas, in the community, Sabama market functions as a Daru, and Kerema. I have been threatened in convenience location for local purchases. Clients a bus on my way home and willingly sur- buy cigarettes, snacks, and buai across the road at rendered my bag. I have been pickpocketed the outside, illicit part of the market, when going to and I have fled for my life while shopping in and from work or school. Children might be sent on Sabama market… very bad experiences. errands to pick up some herbs or an onion. It, like Motu Koitabu woman many markets, has a supermarket and other stores and stalls alongside, selling baked goods and fresh and hot foods. Sabama market has experienced a radical and (in one local’s words) “miraculous transformation” as a result of the 2013 renovation.20 The market Box 16. Local Resident, Market Regular was reestablished as a fresh produce market, with Sabama is more of a community-based sections selling different items, including: vegetables and fruit, drinks and snacks, cooked food (but not market. It’s mainly [ethnic] Eastern Highlands, cooked on-site), cigarettes, some fish, and meat. but it’s a mix, like [the community]. There are Banned was the sale of packaged groceries (which only one or two other [vendors] from Kirakira [a would have competed with local supermarkets); “mini nearby Motu Koitabu village], and they don’t goods” (small imported manufactures and mobile come often. You don’t get outside customers, telephones, sourced from retailers) clothing, and you don’t get outside vendors. It’s not a big buai. As described below, security and management market where you get all the big vendors. arrangements were radically changed. And over the Everything in here revolves around the two years since renovation, the market has retained community. The working class [professional, its opening day gleam. The floor tiles at the front formal sector] people normally don’t do their entrance are polished daily, and it is hard to find a marketing here. They go outside, they get off single cigarette butt among the decorative pebbles the bus at Malaoro [market]. If they are late, and concrete floors. Tables are clean, and immaculate then it’s here. Even the Pari [Motu Koitabu] toilets are staffed by fee-collecting locals. There is no people don’t come marketing in here; the graffiti in the market or on the adjoining businesses Kirakira people mostly don’t come in here. The (which have also been renovated). place is changed; things have changed but you can’t change an adult mentality. They think Sabama’s market is a strong example of a Phase 2 they might get their bag snatched, ladies intervention. It has, like other Moresby markets, harassed. Sabama regular experienced a critical juncture,21 at which the old 20 Television news stories about the market can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgC5iVmM1S8; and https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=O0oDo5ddkM0. 21 G. Capoccia and R. Kelemen, “The Study of Critical Junctures: Theory, Narrative, and Counterfactuals in Historical Institutionalism,” World Politics 59 (2007): 341–69. Promoting the Safety and Economic Vitality of Port Moresby’s Local Markets 15 Aside from some wholesaling of cigarettes, the a.m. (box 17). Goods are securely left overnight in Sabama market is entirely retail. Most of what is the market. In the morning, breakfast food, mainly sold is bought elsewhere at Gordons and Malaoro cooked, is sold at the front of the site. In the busy markets. This can diminish the freshness of its goods, afternoon, chicken (sold by Engan families) and but homegrown vegetables and herbs are also sold fish (caught by Motuans) occupies the central by people from Sabama and Central Province. The area. Cigarettes are sold at the rear (by Southern market is open from 5:30 a.m., with security shifts Highlanders). running from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. and from 6 p.m.to 6 Box 17. Sabama Market Daily/Weekly Market Routine • Trade at the beginning of the week is slow, the end is busiest. Sundays are very quiet. • The morning peak: 5:30–8 a.m., around 30 vendors (overwhelmingly female, at a ratio of up to 10 to 1), selling breakfast items, cooked convenience food to people on their way to work/school/ study. Customers 7:30–8:30 a.m.: 140 (Monday); 180 (Wednesday, Friday).22 Mostly male customers, up to 3 to 1. • The middle of the day, slow time: a maximum of 20 vendors (4 to 1 female), 11:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m., around 100 customers, buying produce, cigarettes. Men and women customers in equal numbers. • The evening peak (especially at the end of the week) 4–6:30 p.m., 50 vendors (at least 4 to 1 female), 550–620 buyers (slight predominance of women); students and schoolchildren, people finishing/coming home from work, buying the day’s food on the way. Fish, chicken, evening meal herbs, convenience snacks (cucumber, cans, fried food). Certain kinds of businesses once included in the in the afternoon, these informal sites adjacent to the Sabama market relocated to areas near the fenced renovated market area are very active with business market site and across the road from its carpark and that is not being done inside the market, meaning bus stop. Hot food sellers operate from private and a loss of custom inside the fence. As has occurred commercial premises; convenience goods sellers also in Gerehu, Sabama’s renovated market offers sell cigarettes, matches, and lighters, some snacks restricted economic opportunity to a limited range and drinks, and buai. Early in the morning and late of vendors. Views about the overall outcome are varied (box 18). Box 18. A Range of Economic and Safety Outcomes at Sabama Market The market has only local sellers—there’s not much variety of products. There’s not much buying power; selling buai is prohibited, so trading is slow now. But security is good, it’s clean, hygienic, orderly. Local resident You stop covering up and tell him the real stories of the market. Tell them we are losing customers, losing money. NCDC and the authorities need to know that we are losing money. Market vendor Before, yes you would have more people. You would have the buai, the Coca-Cola Pepsi iceblocks. But I personally think it’s very good that there is no buai. Malaoro [market] is much cheaper, as is Koki [market], that’s where I shop; better quality and more variety, like the fish market there. Market customer 22 The research team undertook a census of market vendors and customers in the periods of 7:30–8:30 a.m., 11:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m., and 4:30–6 p.m., Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. 16 “There is Security from this Place” 2.3 FUNCTION: SECURITY AND SAFETY Physical renovation of the formal site has created clean and secure spaces for vendors and customers. The fence restricts access to two gated entrances and thus secures the concession. The fenced market is unanimously regarded as a safe zone for person and property in Sabama; no respondent could recall a serious security or theft incident inside the fence since renovation. In areas immediately adjacent to the market fence, in the carpark and bus stop, harassment was reported to have significantly declined. Box 19. Security inside the Sabama Market: Market Regulars Talk Sabama Market Following Renovation. Photo: David Craig/Worldbank Inside the fence, it’s good, it’s safe. We have never had a stealing incident in here, around this stall, around any stalls. resources also offered opportunities to marginal It’s a breeze of fresh air, no, no drinking groups (gender, ethnic, youth) and was seen as around here, no one carrying beers into the wholly legitimate by the market users interviewed for market. There’s no buai, there’s no alcohol this study. inside the fence. If someone tries something, we can catch him, we can hand out spot fines The local MP created a pact with the NCDC straight away. If we see someone going in we governor, took control of Sabama and other Moresby can stop him. We can talk to him. We’ve got a South markets from under the NCDC, dismissed [community] policeman standing at the gate. the Moresby South Markets Board, and extended allowance payments to key Sabama community We can talk to the police, here. It’s people’s leaders. The pact between the MP and the NCDC attitude, now: we talk, people comply. governor made local market renovation an example of political signaling around urban cleanliness, pride, and safety, embodied in several actions, including 2.4 BUILDING INSTITUTIONAL CAPABILITY: infrastructure investment and regulation of buai VERTICAL AUTHORITY IS RESTRUCTURED, sales. ENROLLING LOCAL LEADERS Sabama’s market renovation required significant Resources for the renovation came from the Moresby leadership (box 20). With this, it was possible for South Electorate’s DSIP,23 as well as from the National pacts to be made between senior political officials, Capital District’s PSIP and recurrent budget funding significant new resources to be mobilized, and new allocated by the NCDC Governor Board (of which the rules to be introduced and enforced. It also became MP is a member). The rules attached to DSIP and PSIP possible to create new management arrangements funding enabled the entire renovation to be managed that would bind market staff through powerful lines in a “project mode,” in which the MP’s electoral of accountability to political leaders, and to actively district administration acted as project manager, draw local community authority into the mix, in thus directly handling contracting, appointments, particular, ethnic and community leaders, mediators, supervision, and payments. These processes, guided and community police. This assembly of political closely by the MP are not uncommon in District power (vertical and horizontal authority), rules, and Development Authority contexts. 23 DSIP funds are allocated to District Development Authorities (DDAs), the Boards of which are chaired by MPs. DDAs were designed to have a high level of discretion, enabling more direct responses to local demands, and a range of public- private and other partnerships. Promoting the Safety and Economic Vitality of Port Moresby’s Local Markets 17 The Sabama market renovation project had vertical none in security, and four in cleaning. Appointment reach into higher levels of government and was also and discipline procedures contrast greatly with the able to reach horizontally to bring leaders together previous regime; where accountability between across a diverse community. Thus, resources were staff, managers, and senior officials was formally channeled into new physical capital assets (market lose and malleable, attendance and performance fence and buildings) and management arrangements are now closely supervised, and discipline, including (including the hiring of local leaders in market roles). termination, was routine and direct. Enrolling vertical authority: Box 20. Leadership and Inspiration at Sabama a pact with the police Market: Residents and Market Regulars In contrast to Tokarara, Sabama market benefits from a rare pact between the market Board and on-site The most important thing [the local MP] did management and the local police at Badili Station. was building the market. This had impact The station commander has been given the post of beyond the market. [The Member/Minister] is deputy chair of the Moresby South Markets Board. working in partnership, with the governor, Although Badili police were rarely seen at the market private companies, contractors, with in early 2015, they have a good reputation and everyone. Market customer respect the market’s own arrangements. Police from The Minister and [Badili Police Station elsewhere are not so trusted, however. The market Commander] support us. Day and night the clerk related, “They came around here a few months after we opened. I just told them to go away and come commander comes and sits and talks with us. back only when you’ve hired some Sabama boys.” He’ll stay and eat with us. Community police Vertical authority: Box 21. Cooperation between Two kinds of market governance and management Community Policing: a Market Customer’s View High-level leaders were conscious of the benefits of showing quick results. The MP abolished old The Badili [community policing unit] institutional arrangements and instigated a new community police, that makes a difference. Moresby South markets regimen in which the Board, The community police come, they have a chaired by the MP, became responsible for all market friendly approach to the community, they management and staffing, with the exception of build up the trust with the youths and the rubbish collection (which remained under an NCDC young ones. Those youth, now, are involved contract). All market revenue is retained by the in social activities, games and sports. Markets Board, which is supplemented by an NCDC allocation of K 40,000/month to meet the expenses of markets under its responsibility, including Sabama. The payroll is managed by the Board, which provides Enrolling horizontal authority: NCDC monthly with a list of payees, against which a engaging a wider circle of local leaders single check is written to the Board. Community leaders (in particular those living and/or working close to the market) have been personally Sabama market’s administrative, cleaning, and enrolled by the MP to surveil the site and those security personnel were selected by the market involved around it. The degree to which these links manager, with some MP direction. They include have been personalized is made clear by the fact roughly 50 people, including, at the time of the that Sabama’s Community Development Committee research, 12 community police, 12 security officers (CDC), developed under Port Moresby’s LLG (including a Village Court peace officer and the arrangements, was not the means by which the MP former leader of a loosely formed youth gang), engaged with local leadership. The CDC consisted and eight cleaners (all remunerated equally), in of leaders chosen by the community from 29 ethnic addition to the market management team. Women, groups, as well as various subcommittees, including however, are not yet equally represented; there is law and justice. The MP publicly stated that he would one in management, four in community policing, not recognize the agency of the CDC and had not 18 “There is Security from this Place” activated previously appointed ward committee magistrate are all enrolled, and as Gerehu (below) positions. However, local business women, ethnic shows, more women could profitably be engaged at and church leaders, and a woman Village Court all levels. Table 2. “Grasping Authority” at Sabama Market: Multiple Hats of Market Staff Community Village Local Community Police/ Lives Close/ Ethnic/ Youth Court/ Business/ Church Security/Staff Adjacent Leader Mediator Vendor Leader CDC official Peter √ √ √ √ √ Tom √ √ √ √ √ Sarah √ √ √ Mike √ √ √ Janet √ √ √ √ Bob √ √ √ Robert √ √ Isaiah √ √ Instead, the MP implemented what is locally Box 22. A Customer Reflects on Changes recognized as a “team” approach, enabling more Related to Local Leadership direct political patronage in which both loyalists and community leadership (including some represented People have changed a lot. It’s a mindset on the CDC and its committees—see table 2) could change. I think part of it is because of what be appointed directly into market positions. Direct the minister is doing, especially with the patronage is also reflected in the particularly flat market. I think the market security make a organizational structure of market management. difference; with this development here, Hierarchical contests between leaders enrolled in people look after the community. We got the formal positions (including, for example, the security leaders, elders into the market, and stopped manager, cleaners) are minimized. The direct this nonsense. Some of our [raskol] boys are connection between the MP, his trusted officials, leaders now. Once they were employed by and all the people on the market payroll—typical the market, they stopped everything. Before of a “project mode” type of management—carries there’s no law and order. Now with people a superior authority to any nominal position in the [market staff and security] picked from the management hierarchy. ethnic groups, we stand together, Engan, Kerema... We stand together and work as a 2.5 OUTCOMES AND LESSONS team. You talk together, that’s your way to do it. The reach of the new rules, inside and Market customer outside the formal market concession Sabama market’s new regime of rules, roles, and resources has transformed how it functions, both in terms of security and as an economic concession. make some stay away. But the main beneficiaries of Security and safety inside the formal market improved security and amenities are clear: those who concession, referring to the area inside the new were most vulnerable before the renovation, that market fence, have been positively transformed. is, women and girls. But a transformation has also Certainly, invisible forces undermine the market for occurred in two other areas that include activities some; there is talk of sorcery, for example, of people and people that are also important to Sabama’s cursing because buai has been banned or because functioning as a local, settlement market. These they missed out on a job, and this is enough to include the area that is immediately adjacent to the Promoting the Safety and Economic Vitality of Port Moresby’s Local Markets 19 market and another, just across the road from the the bus stop, such as snacks, cigarettes, or buai. At renovated market. Ultimately, what happens in these Sabama, conditions of safety and security in this area two areas will impact directly on the security and are dynamic. Security continues to be negatively economic vitality of the area inside the market fence. affected by the continuing prevalence of carjackings at the intersection and pedestrian crossing. But The land immediately adjacent to the market, at a positive spillover of the market renovation has the bus stop, carparks, and pedestrian areas, is a occurred in this area, and this is because the effective transitional area of informality just outside the gate, physical reach of the market’s security workers and through which people transit to the market and Sabama community police includes the bus stop on where things are sold that may be prohibited in the the market side of the road, the supermarket carpark, market or can be more conveniently obtained at and the Gavamani Road crossing. Gerehu Market 3. Gerehu Market Just across the road from the Sabama market is the food) are found. In this area,2 fights and other street Pari Road buai market. This area is packed in the crime by youths is common, including carjackings, as mornings and evenings, but safety is directly affected is serious raiding carried out by police patrols. Three by the fact that this is where activities that have been stabbing deaths occurred here during 2015, and expelled from inside the market (buai, marijuana, hot another in early 2016. 20 “There is Security from this Place” Box 23. Shifting Boundaries and Security at the Sabama Market Inside, plenty security. This is how we travel, security. There’s no movement of criminals here. The betelnut side, it’s not safe. Guys smoking marijuana, sometimes they come and bighead against the market. Market security The community police just organize this area [inside the market]. Outside they are not strong. The community police are too old; they should employ young people to go and enforce. When they are employing commu-nity police, most of the youth are being missed out. Most of the issues are created by the youth; when youth are employed they can decrease the crime issues. Now, the buai sellers they try to come back towards the market. They pushing back up to the corner. The police push them back. They are still pushing up. Market vendor Thus, as a result of the renovation, the character of “illegals,” and thus violence in suppressing them is, Sabama market, referring to its geography, security, in effect, morally sanctioned. and commercial and other activities was ‘split’. The Pari Road buai market boundary most clearly Ethnic inclusion/exclusion marked the edge of both exclusion and vulnerability. at the renovated market Here occurred unregulated commercial contest Local Motu Koitabu people, especially those from and violence between vendors and others, as well Pari, Vabukori, and Kilakila, still avoid Sabama market. as violent acts of suppression by police. These In part, this is because fresh cases of carjacking events were often violent because the boundaries and robbery have burnished strong memories of of the area were not defined and there were vulnerability in and around the market. The history of constant territorial battles as a result. Police, both urban settlement and territory is also still felt in the community and constabulary, sought to push the form of an invisible line24 delineating what was once informal sector out and enforce the area of legality the end of Motu Koitabu land and what became immediately around the market. The area’s illegal the start of “Highlander country,” that is, the mixed status complicated decisions by authorities as to settlements of Sabama and Kaugere. This line runs where the market boundary was and which goods down the middle of Gavamani Road. Even recently, were allowed where. It was violent because of the a local (Motu Koitabu) vendor was told, “What place uncertainty of rights in that area; the people entering are you from? You go to your market; this one, we it were already stigmatized as “informal” or youth or voted for the Minister, so he has made it for us.”25 Box 24. Feeling Safe at Sabama? Motu Koitabu Responses There are no raskols like before: just youth, now. The ones now, they use the crowd, they mix with the crowd, around 5,6,7 in the afternoon. If there’s rain, that’s a good time, their informants stand outside, waiting. A car comes, two or three guys walk out on the crossing, the car stops, the gunmen come from the crowd, and hold up the driver. The other boys push the passengers out. We [Motu Koitabu people] don’t feel safe around Sabama, though we’ve never been to the market. Before, there was too much harassing of women. Nowadays that’s already been fixed in our mind. But it’s still happening, right now, in front of our eyes! Motu Koitabu resident, Kirakira 24 This kind of territorial line is a core element in urban settlement, especially in relation to perceptions of safe and unsafe zones and communities on this or that side of the tracks, the road, the city. See, for example, S. Jensen, Gangs, Politics and Dignity in Cape Town (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008). 25 In Tok Pisin: “Yu blo wanem hap? go long market blo yu, dispel em mi votim Minister so Minister wokim blo mipela.” Promoting the Safety and Economic Vitality of Port Moresby’s Local Markets 21 Exclusion and distrust are also registered in the lack Koitabu unwillingness to participate in the market of Motu Koitabu presence among market manage- and wider community and describing a basic Papuan ment, security, community police, and vendors. The reluctance and timidity.26 market and its structures are widely regarded as a part of the wider dominance of Highland popula- Gender inclusion at the new market tions in Sabama. Motu Koitabuans also avoid the The clear outcome of market renovation has been market because they fear alleged Highlander sorcery. that market vendors selling only fresh produce have Security tends to be closely linked with ethnic been made “formal” within the fence and currently affiliation and the control of assets and infrastructure. experience much improved safety here and in the Prejudice, discrimination, and hegemony coexist on immediately adjacent area. Activities involving trade both sides, and this is reflected in the composition and consumption that disproportionately involve of the market’s workforce and patronage. Market- males have been expelled from the market; sitting, related (Highlander) leaders expressed both ethnic drinking, talking, buying buai, and smoking are dis- pride and frustration about this, alleging Motu couraged or banned in the renovated area (box 25). Box 25. Sabama’s Something out of a Dream, but I Can’t Use It: a Male Perspective Now there’s no place in there for us to sit around and have a gossip. We grew up in a village, sitting round talking, pigs and dogs. Then we came to the city… Sabama is dead. Before, it’s like the wild west. Now, it’s too regulated. Everything in there is too organized, this here, that there. At Sabama, it’s always, hey, what are you doing. You don’t do that here. You do that elsewhere. People want to experience the different sides of life, like in a village setting. They want to sell goods quickly. [Malaoro], it’s crowded, it’s busy, it’s exciting. There’s no money in Sabama, no life. The local member has given me something out of a dream at Sabama, but I can’t use it. It’s healthy looking, but I can’t eat it. My wife used to sell iced water inside old Sabama. Now she just sells outside the market. Sabama male resident. The absence of males spending “discretionary” will be included or excluded, directly impact on money on cigarettes and buai and the presence the market’s efficiency and sustainability. Presently, of male sellers buying goods within the market efficiency and sustainability depend on the favorable area have had less desirable knock-on effects. The conditions enabled by the “project mode” used market now offers a narrower range of goods and to carry out the renovation. It is doubtful whether has fewer uses. Thus, the remaining vendors attract the political attention, special administrative fewer customers, and as demand has softened, the arrangements, and subsidized budget created market has become the site of close competition by this modality will be sustained. By definition, a between large numbers of women vendors selling project’s modality is used for a limited duration, and more or less the same thing. There has been an at some point, its responsibilities to enroll people impost on both their profitability and time, which has (leaders, managers, staff), ensure performance led to reduced incomes. Women vendors are safer in according to particular rules, and raise and manage renovated markets, but they must compete in (and sufficient resources to sustain operations will need to with) largely male-dominated markets where foot be returned to routine administrative arrangements, traffic and spending power determine income. or perhaps to new arrangements not yet envisaged. The sustainability of the renovated market will hinge Efficiency and sustainability on how quickly it becomes efficient during and after Changes in market geography, largely as a result of the transition period. decisions about which activities, and thus people, 24 “We Highlanders are strong-headed people; the Papuans are scared people. This suburb is being looked after by Eastern Highlanders.”…. “I know this is not the right thing to say, but I don’t like Motuans much; they don’t contribute to anything in this community.” 22 “There is Security from this Place” Table 3. Monthly Revenue and Expenditure, Sabama Renovated Market Revenue in PNG Kina (PGK) Expenditure in PNG Kina (PGK) 1. Stall & facilities fees PGK 4,000–6,500 1. Staff wages PGK 32,200 2. Market manager salary & expenses PGK 3,000 2. Spot fines PGK 100 3. Electricity PGK 3,000 PGK 4,100– Subtotals Subtotals PGK 38,200 6,600 Source: Interviews and market records. Note: Maintenance covered by NCDC citywide contract; office expenses met by Moresby South Markets Board; services (water, garbage) covered by NCDC citywide contract. The reality is that the current number of market in Board membership made at the behest of the vendors, even with the vender fees, do not yield local MP. sufficient revenue to sustain the market as an independent cost center. Market expenditure (up to Markets across Port Moresby have not been profit K 34,000 per month), spent on wages and utilities makers for the city administration. In principle, local and not including rubbish removal costs, can be markets should not require a recurring subsidy. eight times in excess of market revenue. This deficit Across the globe, and Port Moresby should not be is met by an NCDC subsidy to the Moresby South any different, local markets usually generate subs- Markets Board. From this point of view, the market tantial revenue streams for the city in which they is highly inefficient, but the way forward to greater are located. Unfortunately, in some situations, efficiency hinges on increasing the range and depth malfeasance and corruption often mean this revenue of economic activity in the market. Neither the steps does not return to cover the costs of operating, toward this nor the accompanying changes in market maintaining, or periodically upgrading facilities. It management over time are clear. In the meantime, is this reality that has likely underpinned the crisis the market is fiscally dependent on decisions taken of neighborhood markets in Port Moresby. That by the Moresby South Markets Board, which has two said, any assessment of the costs and benefits of features of note here: first, the revenues generated the Sabama market redevelopment should not just by its remit fall far short of its outgoings and second, weigh the balance of revenue and expenditure it has the prerogative to allocate transfers from the at the market site, but also include the market’s NCDC by grant or subsidy as it sees fit, including to positive externalities, that is, the wider safety, various other markets. Thus, Sabama is vulnerable security, physical, social, and symbolic capital that to competing priorities and not least to changes the renovated market generates. Headline lessons: Phase 2 Urban leadership must build the right people into a “credible pact” that can include and protect all and bring the benefits of diversity into the market. • Bring together community leaders and organizations (from all ethnic groups) and include them in the staff • Especially, try to include representatives of the Village Courts and community police as well as women leaders, and make sure security is not just wansait [from one ethnic group] • Build a relationship with the police, so they come (and help) when needed Include multiple uses (snack food, or, as at Koki and other Moresby South markets, a special secure and separate place for buai selling, clothing, mini-goods stalls) in the reopened market: Don’t prune (or cut out) what doesn’t need pruning!! Promoting the Safety and Economic Vitality of Port Moresby’s Local Markets 23 Part 3/Phase 3. Cycles of Growth or Regression: Learning from Gerehu 3.1 GEREHU NEIGHBORHOOD in illegal activities, and in general, there were few AND MARKET AT A GLANCE incentives to reform. Rubbish collection was poorly Gerehu is a large suburban development in Port done under similar arrangements; rotting rubbish Moresby’s western area, fringed by informal merged with a muddy underfoot to leave the settlements, with a population of roughly 41,720 in market pungent. Gerehu’s location at the rear of 2011 and an average household of 7.7 persons. Its the supermarket shopping precinct, behind an alley central business area, which dwarfs the adjoining dominated by illicit traders, added to its marginality. market, contains several supermarkets, schools, a bus Groups of young men occupied the central sheltered station, a police station, and a wide array of informal tables, selling marijuana, drinking, socializing, and sellers. The market occupies a marginal location harassing market vendors. tucked behind these main shops and away from the main bus stop, and this means it misses out on much Gerehu market’s renovation was initiated by the of the morning and evening work and school transit UN Women–supported Port Moresby Safe City snack trade. It is accessed most easily by car for partnership with the NCDC, which aimed to “enable those residents with a vehicle (and who shop mainly, (women and girls) to move freely and safely, and though not exclusively, in the supermarkets). Most increase their rights to utilize and enjoy public sellers, however, are from the less well-off parts of spaces.”27 Gerehu market’s crisis was presented Gerehu. Some market patrons come from Central in human rights terms: civic duty-bearers were Province (Rigo) or even the Highlands, staying with clearly failing to uphold the rights of vulnerable relatives while they sell durable produce, especially rights-holders. The renovation began in 2012 with sweet potatoes. a ban on the sale of buai, cigarettes, and alcohol, and it also included a restructuring of staff and Prior to redevelopment, Gerehu was managed management; the reorganization of waste collection under the NCDC’s Health Department. Market and refurbished stalls, toilets, and water points; operations and maintenance competed poorly and the installation of storm water systems. The with the immediacy of public demand for front- refurbishments were done in consultation with the line health services, and as a result, Gerehu faced users, mainly women, incorporating their concerns the same “Phase 1” crises of deepening deficits in and needs, in specific regard to safety, shelter, and infrastructure, security services, and waste disposal comfort. When reopened in October 2014 after civil seen in Tokarara. The crisis was exacerbated by works, wider “behavior modification” efforts were institutional cleavages, in which, for instance, security announced, including gender-based anti-violence services were contracted by the NCDC under a activities, a trialing of a community policing model, citywide political patronage arrangement. The the construction of a playground and two additional security vendor performed poorly, amid allegations shelters, and the introduction of a mobile phone– of ethnic bias and the complicity of security workers based bill pay system (“MiCash”).28 27 UN Women, “Making Port Moresby Safer for Women and Girls,” 5. 28 UN Women Papua New Guinea, “Gerehu, Gordons and Koki Markets: Progress Review and Transport Baseline,” Draft Report, Port Moresby Safe City Program (Port Moresby: UN Women, 2016). 24 “There is Security from this Place” 3.2 FUNCTION: SAFETY AND SECURITY Box 26. Gerehu “Before and After”29 Gerehu Market Vendors Before After our sales, some people followed us and were trying to pull [steal] our bags. Sometimes when people are drunk, they stand in your way and you have to pay them before you go out. The market is not really safe. At night there is no security. We leave our leftover vegetables and go. Then men come and cut open the bags and steal kaukau, potatoes, bananas, and coconut. In the morning, we come and see. We bring our complaints to the police station, but the police do not help us. After Now the market has come good, there’s no rubbish inside, we’ve got cleaners, we look after the toilet, security can stand at the gate. If anyone’s fighting inside the market we can get the police. We have a good contact with the police. This market was a car theft zone, in the carpark. You’ll never see that now, you won’t see women afraid to stop their cars. Now, the women, come stop their vehicle, come in, walk around, then go, get in their vehicle and go home, nothing. Gerehu market’s focus on women vendors and their Women vendors, many selling alone, comprise safety inside the market has enhanced safety for all around 90 percent of all vendors, a higher proportion those operating inside and—to some extent—around than at Sabama or Tokarara. At the latter two markets, the market.30 The market is now a safe haven, and the men were most present at the cigarette stands; traders have access to running water and clean basic at Gerehu, however, where cigarettes are banned, facilities. Vendors can leave goods on-site overnight. these men market their goods outside the gate in the Safety has dramatically improved for customers, carpark. Inside, there are mother-daughter teams, who can now leave their cars in the carpark and shop and a number of children of vendors play around the with confidence. As at Sabama, no one interviewed market. A number of the vendors were involved in had seen or experienced any serious violent inci- both childcare and craft production (knitting bilums dents inside the fence since the renovation. [string bags]). 3.3 FUNCTION: ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY There is no morning peak. Gerehu in the morning is As noted, Gerehu market is located away from the often largely deserted, with only the snack vendors main road and bus stop. In the past, it attracted out in front of the carpark doing a brisk trade. There customers going to and from work, including many are fewer than five vendors (and a similar number males, through its rough “buai and cigarettes” (and of customers) regularly inside the market at 7:30 cooked food and gambling) ethos. This core of the a.m., whereas the informal market in the carpark market’s economy, however, has been dismantled by just outside the market fence has a continual stream its new regulatory order and only partially replaced of customers beginning at 6 a.m. onwards. There, by larger numbers of women trading produce. around 15 vendors sell cooked snacks, drinks, Currently, the formal market sells only fresh produce cigarettes, and firewood, much of it to patrons of (though some cooked snacks, cigarettes, and drinks the adjacent local bus stop. Business intensity inside are sold on the edge of the market carpark. This the market increases from 8:30 to 9 a.m., and around means that inside the market there are multiple 100 vendors operate until the 6 p.m. closing, with no vendors of the same product. large midday slump, serving a steady flow of 20–35 customers in the market throughout the day. 29 From “Breaking the Vicious Circle of Violence in Local Markets in Papua New Guinea,” UN Women News, November 26, 2012, http://www.unwomen.org/ru/news/stories/2012/11/breaking-the-vicious-circle-of-violence-in-local-markets-in-papua-new-guinea. 30 This is clearly evidenced in UN Women “Gerehu, Gordons and Koki Markets,” 20, 25. Promoting the Safety and Economic Vitality of Port Moresby’s Local Markets 25 There are thus 80–100 vendors selling very similar What this means is that produce vending at Gerehu things inside the Gerehu market, all day long and happens in a situation fairly close to perfect over long time spans. Talking with vendors, it is clear competition, meaning low prices and small margins. that they simply need to be there all day if they are However, vendors reported that prices here are not to sell their goods. Vendors reported taking five or as low as in busier markets, as there is still a basic even seven days to sell out of sweet potatoes that subsistence level below which even slowly moving sold in three or four days in other markets. The fee of stock cannot be sold, while briskly moving stock in K 2 per day consumed a higher share of profits and other markets can be discounted still further. was harder to collect. Box 27. Gerehu Vendors Describe their Marketing Conditions The [renovated] market has advantages and disadvantages. Advantages are it’s public, it’s safe, it’s available. Disadvantages are lack of people [buyers] and the large numbers bringing to sell. Outside of the market, it’s faster, much faster to sell but also faster to buy, for the buyers. They buy [outside] and they come home sooner. The problem is some people selling outside. The customer doesn’t come in here. To come in here, they have to stop and come over here; they don’t want to stop. Everyone wants to come home [from work], grab and go. Non-lucrative uses, extended hours subsist- non-premium goods for sale, providing a secure ence: impact on economic subsistence and but long-won subsistence for its vendors. Higher- domestic life value, perishable goods (such as fish, meat, snacks, The economy of the new Gerehu market is, like buai) are excluded, and their potential value lost or Sabama’s, highly truncated. The market does not dispersed over long selling times. have a mix of different uses that attract a range of different buyers over the day.31 This mix, apparent A bag of buai bought wholesale for K 400 can before renovation and at other currently unrenovated produce sales of K 800, and reportedly in two hours markets, would include snacks, phone cards, or less, representing a return of up to K 200 kina per cigarettes, and buai for breakfast in the morning, hot hour, including travel to the wholesale market. A bag food at lunch and dinner, and meriblouses (women’s of sweet potatoes or similarly durable vegetable dresses) and small goods in the afternoons, lucrative might realize K 80 kina in sales, and a K 20–40 kina perishable meat and fish in the late afternoon, and profit. Twenty kina earned in two days provides 250 snacks, drinks, and scratchy-cards after school and percent more income per hour than the same amount work. The mix would also include recreational users, earned over five days. Gerehu vendors reported a coming to sit, talk, smoke and perhaps play cards doubling and quadrupling of precisely these selling and gamble. Instead, Gerehu Market has become times, compared to pre-renovation conditions and a perfect competition monoculture of cheap/ comparative market situations. Table 4. Reported Profit Rates and Time to Sell, Sweet Potato and Buai Profit rates/time if … 2 hours …2 days … 5 days sold in… Kaukau (sweet potato) - 20%/day 8%/day Buai >50%/hour 75%/day - 31 See J. Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities (New York: Vintage Books, 1961). 26 “There is Security from this Place” That women vendors were experiencing losses All of this points to the conclusion that Gerehu market because they were unable to sell all of their has not recovered from the critical juncture created by produce before it began to rot was underscored its renovation. From the perspective of institutional by the UNWomen’s 2016 progress review. As one reforms, this means that the transformation has not summarized, “The clean toilets, shower and other yet triggered the kinds of cycles of positive feedback facilities are very nice, we are very happy about the and return35 that will see more vendors and sellers safe markets. Our biggest outcry is we don’t have enrolled and more resources flowing through the enough customers. We spend so much money to market. Long-term viability, then, is likely to depend sell and most of the times our goods get damaged on continuing external support. because the goods stay over” (female vendor).32 3.4 BUILDING INSTITUTIONAL CAPABILITY The extra time taken to sell produce or the costs Gerehu’s redevelopment was explicitly concerned incurred through the loss of perishable goods with reaching beyond the quality of market potentially impacts on domestic life. One impact is infrastructure and how it functioned. This ambition the costs imposed on what are known as the domestic also provides useful lessons for future market economies. Women vendors need to spend all day renovations. in the market, instead of just coming at peak times. The value of their time, in marginal pricing terms, The Port Moresby Safe City partnership drops to practically zero. Their inability to contribute and NCDC markets to domestic economies (unpaid domestic work, Although the Gerehu renovation deployed basically emotional economies, including childcare, gardens, the same project modality as was applied in Sabama, home-based vending, crafts) produces family stress. its redevelopment did not feature to the same degree This second flow-on effect was also underlined by the high profile and personalized political patronage respondents to the UNWomen’s progress review, seen there. Nor was renovation completed as rapidly, in which female vendors expressed concern that and thus the period of disruption to the market “We have women feeling insecure to go home was longer and more pronounced. But political because they didn’t sell all their goods knowing support from both the NCDC governor and the their husbands will complain and hit them” (female local MP provided the platform on which to mount vendor). On the same theme: “Women experience the ambitious agreement between the NCDC and violence at home be it verbally and physically from UN Women. This was not simply about installing their husbands and sons because they have not “gender sensitive and inclusive infrastructure … in made money from their sales and so they get beaten and around the markets” so as to increase the safety up and so that has resulted in more women leaving of women and girls; its ambit was also to reform the markets” (female vendor).33 A further effect may “NCDC policies, bylaws, budgets and revenue be felt as a result of efforts by families to diversify collection systems” on a continuing basis.36 The their economies, including by sending children coupling together of high-profile infrastructure with and partners into other marketing contexts (for public sector reform and gender rights came at a example, to bus stops). The net result is a version significant juncture in NCDC’s development and was of what Geertz called “involution,”34 wherein women appealing to the newly elected governor. exploit their own labor extensively in order to secure marginal (but essential) gains in income. This is one Consistent with the public sector reform objective, reason way childcare and craftmaking have become a new Markets Division came into being late in attractive adjuncts to all-day vending at Gerehu. 2014, four years after first being mooted. Another 32 UN Women, “Gerehu, Gordons and Koki Markets,”34. 33 Ibid., 25. 34 C. Geertz, Agricultural Involution: the Processes of Ecological Change (Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 1963). 35 Perri 6, “Institutional Viability: a Neo-Durkheimian Theory,” Innovation 16, no. 4 (2003): 395–415. 36 UN Women, “Port Moresby: A Safe City for Women and Girls,” Project Document, (Port Moresby: UN Women, 2014) 34–62. unpublished Promoting the Safety and Economic Vitality of Port Moresby’s Local Markets 27 breakthrough signaled a shift from business as usual. security, and the community, and the vertical links Previous security arrangements, involving a citywide, involving renovation funders and nongovernmental patronage-linked contract with a single ethnic organizations (NGOs), civic authority, political lead- organization, saw allegations of both neglect and ership, and law enforcement. But at Gerehu, these extortion. After long insistence from Port Moresby links are achieved substantially to the credit of Safe City leadership, security in Gerehu is now two highly motivated women on the NCDC Social provided through a specific NCDC Markets contract Services Department staff and the market’s senior with a firm that recruits from different ethnic groups controller, also a well-established women’s leader. (with a small preponderance of Goilalas). The Social Services staff, like the senior controller, At the same time, the NCDC governor’s political are supported by project resources to provide official leadership ensured that new resources were day-to-day leadership for initiatives that correspond available, as in Sabama’s case, via DSIP and PSIP to the donor’s objectives. This has been important funds, to co-finance the renovation, along with in winning program support from market vendors. Australian government aid channeled through For her part, the senior controller (see box 28) is a UN Women. These resources, combined with community and church leader, appointed as a local the governor’s political authority and the direct councilor by a former neighbor, the NCDC governor, execution of decisions through the project modality, with whom she had worked as a political activist. Her made it possible to impose new rules on Gerehu links to horizontal and vertical authority at the Gerehu market. These new rules applied to permissible market are thus personal and direct. Her husband is a uses and activities in the market and also bypassed senior employee of the NCDC Markets Division. She administrative hierarchies within the NCDC. and her husband live in a house at the Gerehu market site, and she spends a great deal of her time in and Market management around the market. Her management is personal and community involvement and hands-on; when things need protecting, she At Sabama, a range of local leaders, including a will physically intervene, and when someone needs number of women, create the hinge for the hori- reminding of market rules, her voice booms across zontal links between market management, vendors, the market. Box 28. “Our Boss is Very Strict”: The Senior Controller Talks about Managing Gerehu Market This project was like a baby to me. I worked on it for three years for no pay; when the market controller job came up, I said, that’s it, I want to do that. If you talk to the vendors, they will tell you: our boss is very strict. But this woman has a heart for people. At the end of the day, everyone reports to me. They all report. I hold each one of them accountable. The leadership roles we have, well, it all depends on trust: management trust, security trust. If you, me are playing games behind, it won’t work. People will know. The politicians, the members too, they have a lot of trust in us. They know I’m one of the women leaders. They know we can do something for this community. We have a plan, looking forward, looking forward a long way! Pact with the police security, this pact in 2015 was extended to include and community organizations informal sector vendors operating around the market After a long period of limited responsiveness from site (next page). Gerehu has also placed a significant the Gerehu police, strong and practical links have focus on attracting community groups to be a part of been forged between market management and a the project, providing volunteers and delivering their senior policewomen at Gerehu police. Like market services on-site. 28 “There is Security from this Place” Box 29. Market and Police Working Together If there’s a family matter, and a woman in the market who has problems, beaten up by her husband, I do, I ask them what is happening. We have a referral pathway to the police station. We can bring them in there. If the husband comes back in the market situation, if he’s very violent, I’ll get the police involved, and he will be charged. If it can be mediated, I will. Most of the women don’t know the referral pathway: where is the Ruth [women’s safe] house? Here we linked up with partners on the ground: Doctors With No Borders ran a workshop right here with the VC magistrates. When [the new women police sergeant] is on duty at the police, I will send women down. Senior market controller Vendors associations Women in market leadership Port Moresby Safe City’s focus on women vendors has Women have had the scope to lead several of the extended to the formation of vendors’ associations at successful elements of the Gerehu renovation. These Moresby markets. The Gerehu vendors’ association include the mobilization of vendors (themselves has the contract for the immediate cleaning of women, organizing into associations); the inclusion the market; they also have a committee of named of the informal sector; the creation of links with the officials with whom management interact on a day- police and community sector; the high profile of to-day basis. Establishing the vendors’ committees NCDC female staff; and overall leadership that is was a core part of the initial “awareness raising” and gender sensitive. Together, they constitute the most trust building that Port Moresby Safe City undertook powerful set of women-led developments in any Port at Gerehu, getting the market vendors on board with Moresby market. Experience elsewhere demonstrates both the possibility of change and its process. that going beyond “gender sensitivity” and directly empowering women into leadership positions, hiring 3.5 OUTCOMES AND LESSONS women, such as in NCDC market management, and Although the particulars vary between Sabama and organizing informal vendors beyond the market Gerehu, the fundamental strengths and vulnerabilities (again, mostly women) could add to this success.37 of this constellation of institutional capabilities are Sabama market and its governing Moresby South much the same. The renovation modality, in the Markets Board should follow Gerehu’s example. hands of favorable leadership, in both cases has proven highly effective at eliminating and replacing Market revenues and sustainability atrophied or resistant administration and also fusing Gerehu faces similar economic sustainability issues together political and administrative authority. This to Sabama, and for basically the same structural has made it possible to impose new rules on, and reasons. Revenue has improved marginally as a direct resources into, highly competitive, fractious, result of the trialing of electronic fee collection and commonly violent places, while at the same time technologies, but it remains low, and efforts to benefiting from a vocally supportive local leadership. increase the harvest of fees are being resisted But these positive effects depend on the availability in several quarters, including by market vendors of particular kinds of (highly discretionary) funds, complaining forcibly that the slow trade means they close and trusting relations between high-level simply cannot (and will not) pay market fees. The political authority and on-ground operators, and a situation remains subject to negotiation. Ultimately, uniquely powerful project modality. Where renova- however, an increase in potential revenue from the tion has been comprehensive, interim arrangements market will depend on improved trade and this, in will need to be retained as a minimum condition turn, is contingent upon attracting custom through a until new efficiencies enable revenue from market broader range of goods and services on sale at the operations to match routine expenditure. market or in near proximity. 37 See Underhill-Sem and others, “Changing Market Culture in the Pacific.” Promoting the Safety and Economic Vitality of Port Moresby’s Local Markets 29 Reach of authority: extending the zone, including more uses, police intervention to an informal market site on the making the market more attractive edges of Gerehu. However, under an arrangement Like Sabama, the benefits of improved market personally negotiated by the active senior controller security are felt outside the fence in the adjacent and a senior Gerehu policewoman, selected sellers areas where a range of informal/convenience selling have been allowed to operate closer to the market occurs. Gerehu’s zones of transition between legality (box 30), and this is making a significant positive and illegality are different, as buai vendors were contribution to their safety (and perhaps to the effectively banished under a barrage of tear gas and market’s overall viability). Box 30. The Vendors by the (Smaller) Market Bus Stop Speak Yes, we pay the 2 kina [market fees], and we keep our tables inside the market at night. We were sick of getting chased away from outside, from the bus stop. We came to the sanctuary of the market. Inside [the market] it’s only garden vegetables. Out here it’s cigarettes, drink, snacks. We feel safe here. We keep the place clean, we are organized, we have our own security, our leaders in the market. We are the regulars, the ones who come here all the time. If some bigheads come, we get together and chase them out. Drunks too. The market security will help us sometimes. Before, the police came here and terrorized us, turned over the tables, stole the eskis [cool storage bins] and go. OK, some were selling drinks and buns, well… some were selling buai under the table. But the police beat all of us. If they come, I will try to protect what we have. We keep this place very clean, very tidy. We line up the firewood for sale. We are clean people—don’t threaten us! These are human beings in here. I am trying to indirectly deal with their difficulty, by finding a way for them to stay here. I can’t buy them a packet of rice, they have to eat. It’s negotiating; we say, you can do market here, but you have to take care of the rubbish. It’s proactive, not reactive. Sergeant Paulus, Gerehu police, talking about informal trading around Gerehu market Trading outside the safety of Gerehu market: Box 31. Opportunities and Dangers Outside incentives and dangers for women the Gerehu Market Fence The constrained commercial viability facing vendors at Gerehu market creates strong incentives for them We need to shift the market. Or we go to venture outside the market. However, this takes outside, and they chase us. If we don’t go women beyond the market’s zone of security, which outside, we sit here and wait. Vendor has given rise to fears about physical safety. Some sellers choose to come [inside Gerehu Exclusion and inclusion, market]. But if you are looking for money for economic viability, and safety income for sellers they have to go outside. Market renovations need to make clear decisions People still have to make a profit; if they want about the goods and activities that can be included a faster profit, they need to go outside. within the market precinct and what will be excluded. Vendor As at Sabama, exclusion from the market’s economic concession also creates insecurity. This occurs directly, It has to be local people taking ownership of as women vendors seeking better returns venture this market and saying “Let’s do our marketing beyond the fence, and indirectly, as some activities— here!” I say to them: “Look at yourself, this is especially, but not exclusively, those associated with for you, this is your place. If you go there buai sales and consumption—are deemed illegal. [outside], well, you will face it. You will be Where this occurs, the potential returns increase raped.” Senior market controller 30 “There is Security from this Place” in tandem with the risk of violence arising from unregulated competition. The security dividend of Box 32. Markets for Inclusion and Safety? market renovation initially accrued mainly to women We have to look further, look at ways and and girls, but the downside is the exclusion from the means to be bringing people in so they can renovated market area of all commerce and social really see what they can bring to this market. activities deemed unsuited to them. This becomes It’s no good saying, this is formal, this is self-defeating, as profitability declines and women relocate elsewhere, back into the zones of illegality informal—it’s the same women selling things. and violence or, as Gerehu respondents to the UN We have to include the whole lot. Why are Women’s progress review noted, it can expose they “informal”? Because they are outside women to increased risk of violence at home. the fence! Maybe it is “formal” to be inside, because it is regulated, moderated, that’s Therefore, decisions about what to include within why. So it goes. But we have to create space the zone of renovation, and equally, how to deal for these vendors “outside.” It’s like, one with the issue of informal selling outside and beyond mother is selling English potato, one selling the markets, are crucial tests in terms of both market sweet potato; there’s no difference, they are economy and security. Markets that are inclusive will all selling. Some want to sell veggies, some face challenges, but arguably, they also have greater not, it’s their choice. So why are some outside? potential to achieve a long-term balance between Now, the real concern is violence; now, there’s safety and security, on the one hand, and market no violence happening [inside the fence]; economic vitality and sustainability, on the other. it’s happening where the “informal” are forced to go, where there’s no real control. Community developer, Port Moresby Gerehu Market Entry after Renovation. Photo: David Craig/Worldbank Headline lessons: Phase 3 • Support market managers to enforce the rules, and include everyone in the market and keep it clean and worthy of pride • Be prepared to support the market financially while it recovers from the shock of renovation • Find new uses/producers/services/community groups to bring into the market to keep it busy all day long, a “one-stop shop” with different kinds of customers: fish, hairdressing, children’s health • Extend the “zone of security” provided by the market out into the surrounding vending and transport areas. Promoting the Safety and Economic Vitality of Port Moresby’s Local Markets 31 Conclusions and Recommendations: When Renovating Port Moresby’s Markets, Where to Focus Attention The wave of redevelopments of Port Moresby’s mar- authority is needed so that market institutions kets is transforming a core aspect of the city’s econ- can grasp together different leaders (vertical and omy, safety, and security, as well as its inclusiveness horizontal) into pacts that can ensure market rules and available opportunities Transformative effects in have sufficient reach to exclude undesirable uses renovated markets include: and also ensure that the site is protected, both inside and outside the market fence. • Greatly improved safety for women and girls inside markets Efficiency. Markets succeed when they make it • Better hygiene and amenities possible for multiple compatible vendors to enter, compete, and create confidence that goods are • Some spillover of safety and security in areas available at acceptable prices. This makes markets adjacent to the markets efficient. But where security becomes the overarching • Undoubted contribution to a wider mindset consideration, it can reduce openness to trade as change about a cleaner, safer Port Moresby well as the range of goods on sale and the number Yet, challenges to the durability of these changes of other activities around the market. Where this remain: happens, markets begin to decline, and those that remain are less well served because the market has • Markets have not yet become efficient. They are become less efficient. not enabling sellers to sell quickly and buyers to find what they want, nor are they generating Legitimacy. It is important that markets are efficient. sufficient revenue to cover costs. But where markets are known for affording the • As a result, current funding of market renovation customer the convenience of being able to buy a relies on exceptional political leadership and range of items, access services (such as prepared pacting. food, beauty services), and achieve other goals • Not all ethnic and community groups feel (such as meeting friends, caring for children), this welcome in the new markets. commonly makes them inclusive and legitimate. Different ethnicities come to feel secure and have • Some places and vendors outside the fence have opportunities in and around markets, as do both old become more vulnerable. and young, women and men, and informal vendors. • Police in particular need to be more constructively involved in and around markets. It is everywhere challenging to find the right alignment of authority, efficiency, and legitimacy. Markets’ institutional capability: And this is where the tricky nature of market authority, efficiency, and legitimacy regulation—the rules of the institution—comes This Policy Note uses an “institutional capabilities” into view. Markets need to trade off inclusiveness framework to think about the successes and (multiple uses, open economic access) against the challenges of market renovations. Three aspects need to exclude some activities so as to create of institutional capability are worth restating here and maintain security. During market renovation, because they cut across each of the recommenda- markets need to be highly regulated spaces because tions presented below: people, rules, and resources should be focused on implementing and sustaining the newly introduced Authority. For markets to operate as concessions arrangements. But if these conditions persist for too (where safe, open opportunities exist for trade), long after the physical renovation has been done, 32 “There is Security from this Place” markets can become overregulated. If the market become misaligned and compromised. And, as this is unable to respond dynamically to opportunities report has shown, this can result in the market being and demands, authority, efficiency, and legitimacy placed at risk. Practical Actions and Recommendations for Market Renovation Leaders All of the following recommendations are relevant 4. Local leaders on whom market renovations to all market renovators, including the four following depend for success: Traditional and ethnic categories of actors: leaders, women’s groups, and church and civil society leaders wanting to make their markets 1. Government leaders, administrative officials, and and communities safer the police Although it is clear that successful market renovation 2. MPs, provincial and district representatives, local- depends on the active involvement of each of these level government presidents and councilors, and actors, the degree to which one category of actor traditional landlords and private market owners leads the process or alternately plays a background role varies across different cases. The key lesson, 3. Agencies—government and/or donor—able to as noted below, is that success depends on various mobilize the volume and kinds of funds needed pacts being made between these actors. to support each aspect of the renovation process Phase 1: Recommendations for Actions before Renovation 1. Put together a market renovation project team. there is great value in creating a renovation team in which four categories of actors are represented: Market renovations are more likely to succeed when i) government (senior administrators, the police), ii) backed by pacts between higher leaders like the political leaders, both official and traditional, private MP, the market owners, and the police. These pacts sector, and informal, iii) funding agencies, and iv) are not easily contrived by others. But to support local lidamen/meri, drawn from civil society, church the formation and consolidation of such pacts, groups, and local associations. Exactly who needs to be included in the renovation team will vary from place to place. Promoting the Safety and Economic Vitality of Port Moresby’s Local Markets 33 2. “Cam na lukim” [come and see]: Even where it women vendors, community leaders, business looks like there is just chaos… people, Village Court officials, and politicians, and be sure to build them into leadership roles in the … understand how the market already works both renovation activities from the outset. as an economic concession and as a place to do … and understand the main sources of violence and business, congregate, and socialize. insecurity. How does insecurity arise, is it because of market design and layout? Does it arise from the Understand the different groups who already sell at sale of certain goods, or ethnic rivalry, or policing the market and how they are organized to stay safe practices? What starts it? What time of day? Who and trade advantageously. Each ethnic group will bears the brunt of violence? Who is around and able have particular “selling spots,” products, and kinds to intervene then? When violence is preempted or of regular customers, who will buy things from not successfully mediated, who needs to be involved? just one part of the market. They will rely on different customers (men, women, students) at different times 3. Sponsor a four-way dialogue to find out of the morning/evening (on the way to and from what kinds of pacts and agreements can be work), for a range of purposes, not just buying and made in the market to support immediate selling. Make sure all of these kinds of sellers and improvements in safety and security that can customers are known, and make plans from the be sustained right through the renovation beginning to include them in the new market—or to process. exclude them, if that is needed to make the market safe for others. However, it should be clearly noted at … Four actors need to explicitly consider the kinds the outset that markets that work are highly complex. of pacts and agreements possible in this particular If exclusions must be made, it is important to exclude market: i) civic authority (council/Markets Board/ only illegal activities or activities that from a public market owner/blok chairman), ii) the Royal Papua health viewpoint are clearly unacceptable. In other New Guinea Constabulary, iii) community police, and words, renovators should avoid pruning what does iv) local leaders (mediators, Village Court officials, not to be need pruned. civic association, etc.) and vendor representatives. For safety, each seller (and many buyers) will already … Specify what the police commander can and be a part of a network of people with savepes [local cannot commit to at and around the market site. recognition] people they know from their own or Empower community police to bridge the gap. other ethnic groups who will keep them safe. They will want that security in the new market if they are … Ensure that deliberate efforts are made to going to come and sell there, and plans should thus ensure that the interests of vulnerable, politically be made to deal with this mindset. There will be less influential groups are reflected in agreements. some groups that do not use the market; it will be This may involve specific support to these groups, important to find out who these are and see whether or the creation of vendors’ associations to ensure they can be included. Already, some groups are that their voices are heard in negotiations with more actively excluded by existing vendors; if they are powerful actors. In the likely event that responsibility to be safely included, this situation will have to be for the renovation process is carried through a confronted and managed. project approach, ensure that the civic authority responsible for the market in the long term is from … find out where power lies in how the market is the start directly accountable for the progress of the governed. Identify the existing leaders and their renovation process. relationships in and around the market, especially 34 “There is Security from this Place” Phase 2: Recommendations for Actions during Renovation Market renovation creates a major “shock” to the success. One way to support such outcomes would economic livelihood of thousands of vulnerable be to encourage participants in the pacting during people. The market itself is economically vulnerable; Phase 1 to announce a charter of commitments, vendors and customers can move away—and stay among which ethnic, gender, and generational away. Moreover, although renovation can result diversity is recognized. in rapid improvements in safety and security for women and girls, these benefits can be threatened 3. Find new ways to get community and local law over time, depending on decisions made during the and justice leaders involved on the site. process. Once the renovation begins, the chances of success will be greater if the renovation team can Involve the Village Court, community police, local achieve the following: komiti members and mediators, and church, sports, and business leaders. Provide them uniforms, 1. Minimize the insecurity of vendors and market-related ID cards, and a clear charter of duties. customers—and the decline in their numbers— Explicit steps should be taken to include indigenous during the physical renovation. ethnic groups in both management and security. This is not as simple as it sounds. Vendors need 4. Make longer-term financial plans, anticipating certainty. If communication is vague or plans for that post-renovation expenses will be higher renovation are uncertain, they will go sell somewhere and revenues lower, and that these conditions else and it will be tough to get them back. Avoid will last over a longer time frame than first complete closure; make a temporary market and envisaged. make it safe and secure. Signal as early as possible that efforts will be made to include most existing Successful market renovations need more than a uses/activities inside the new space. short-term injection of capital for civil works. Rather, success depends on funding incrementally higher 2. Ensure that the market staffing reflects the recurrent costs over a much longer period of time local mix of ethnic groups, young and old, men than it takes to complete the physical works. It and women. generally takes much longer than anticipated for the renovated market’s economy to get back on its The most practical demonstration of a commitment feet and thus generating revenue. These challenges to inclusion is for market security to reflect the local have a better chance of being addressed if those ethnic mix, and especially to include groups (such as who must deal with them are confident that there is the Motu Koitabu people) who already feel excluded. adequate recurrent funding until the new market is If this can be done, the market has a greater chance both economically viable and secure. of attracting wide patronage and thus economic Promoting the Safety and Economic Vitality of Port Moresby’s Local Markets 35 Phase 3: Recommendations for Actions after Renovation Market renovation is like major surgery: it needs • Make the market a site for community groups, time and special measures to enable recovery. Once leaders, and activities; women’s groups; educa- the physical works are complete, the following tion, health, and family issues; counseling and actions improve the chances of high returns on the church meetings; and even Village Courts or investment: mediations. 1. Support activities that promote a positive • Give youth a place to buy and sell things. Work image of the market. with local youth to identify enterprises they can set up in and around the market, selling goods or Invest in ways of raising awareness about the positive providing basic services. impact of the renovation on market safety, employing activities that will welcome all ethnic groups, so as 3. Respond to the security needs of people both to help build the market’s reputation. Survey local inside and outside the market fence. residents about how safe they feel in and around the market, and find durable ways to make them feel The credibility of market renovation will initially come safe in the wider precinct and as they move to and from improved safety and security for women and from market areas. girls inside the fence. But long-term market security, economic opportunity, and legitimacy require im- 2. Make specific efforts to attract a more diverse proved security in a wider area, and for a wider range range of uses and kinds of leadership and of people. authority to the market. This can be achieved by identifying opportunities After renovation, the vitality and inclusiveness of to extend market zones of safety out into carparks, markets is too easily undermined by overregulating formal and informal trading areas, and intersections activities that can occur in the market (such as beyond renovated markets. Some usages—such excluding hot food or snack sellers), imposing as trading alcohol and other stimulants—could conservative safety controls, and unduly restricting require a separate fenced zone next to the market, the access of some kinds of people (or overly favoring if issues from that area are not to spill over into the only some groups or activities). Identify the different market site. uses that people would or could make of markets, and the different features (including services, such as The key aim will be to improve security by including hairdressing, shoe repair, tailoring) they might want males, youths, and social users of the markets. The to be able to access there. separate provision of security for each use, in each area, can also directly improve the scope and scale • Attract compatible uses: snack sellers, food of activities occurring in the wider market. This can sellers, and mini-goods and meriblouse sellers result in improved profitability for sellers and greater are compatible with fresh food and do not always revenue to meet market costs. attract predators. 4. Reestablish market management and • Enable vendors to do supplementary tasks on site, governance for the long term, but with the such as childcare, craftmaking and marketing, and ability to change course, act, and adapt. laundry. Plan to include a playground or fenced childcare area on the site. If the market management arrangements before renovation worked well, transition back to them after 36 “There is Security from this Place” physical renovation has concluded. More commonly, based] or political patronage appears to be the basis it will be clear that market governance arrangements for hiring, this will bring resentment and failure. before renovation were part of the problem. When market governance arrangements are returned to ...Keep lines of accountability between key actors the mainstream of urban authority governance, short and direct. The market manager will need to experience shows that three areas will be critically be able to impose swift penalties on those who do important. not perform their duties. Security staff need to be closely monitored and disciplined. At the same time, …Ensure there is clear oversight and review of how the manager uses his/her authority will need to contracting processes. Bad decisions on contracting be monitored by credible authorities. out, for example, security or management contracts based simply on least-cost principles or driven by the …Prepare for leadership and management transi- pecuniary benefits of new contracts can damage or tions. Be alert to the fact that approaching the destroy market functions. market as a special project may be especially suited to the short-term needs of renovation, but that …Make sure hiring is not wanside [biased to kin], but transferring these responsibilities back to mainstream is demonstrably and visibly inclusive. If wantok [kin- organizations can be fraught with difficulty. Postscript The Return of Betelnut to Sabama market, January 2017 In January 2017, the Member of Parliament for Moresby South and Chair of the Moresby South Markets Board oversaw the return of buai [betelnut] selling inside the Sabama market, just as he had done via a separate compound adjoining the larger Koki market where he had also led the renovation. The way this has been handled appears to be entirely consistent with the findings and the Phase 3 recommendations made above. On a return visit to the market in February 2017, the authors observed what appeared to be dramatic, positive effects from these changes. As was the case before the renovation of the ‘buai and cigarette’ Sabama market, more than thirty-five buai – predominantly male – sellers occupied a substantial section of the market, towards the rear. The market’s security people reported no issues: vendors (and observation) made it clear that a ban on consumption of buai within the market was being upheld. Vege and snack sellers reported increased sales: the market appeared to be much better subscribed than during the buai ban. Vendors said they were much happier and safe inside the fence than across the road. No complaints were heard, though the visit was brief, and certainly a number of market actors had previously expressed relief that buai had been excluded. Promoting the Safety and Economic Vitality of Port Moresby’s Local Markets 37 Annex 1: Note on Methods This exploratory and formative piece of research used primary ethnographic and qualitative methods: observa- tion, participation, case studies, and group and individual interviews. It developed and validated initial findings through qualitative sampling strategies. These included snowball sampling and triangulation (deliberately seeking perspectives that are different from those already heard, with differences that are based on accepted social science parameters—see below); multiple points of entry and research team balance and splitting (not becoming dependent on or captured by one person, group, site); sampling to redundancy (pursuing these techniques until little or no new material and perspectives come to light); and sampling for difference (ensuring that the qualitative sample includes the full range of points of view). In urban PNG’s mixed settlements, research- significant differences include, at a minimum, ethnic, gender, age, and class, as expressed in roles within both the formal and informal economies. The study applied theoretical and analytic approaches (drawn largely from international/comparative political science, urban political economy, and historical institutional analysis) to inform the exploration of patterns of institutional development and capability. A further purposive sampling of respondents based on these approaches was a feature of interviews and observations throughout the research. Each site was visited and observed on multiple occasions over nine months of engagement, with each site the subject of 10–14 days initial intensive ethnographic observation. Extended series of interviews and focus groups were conducted with key actors in and around the markets, and with officials and others in government, administrative, and additional market contexts. Sites were also visited regularly as part of a parallel study of local mediation capabilities, involving many of the same local leaders. Ongoing monitoring of the situation into mid- 2016, particularly with regard to the regulatory context of the buai ban and its policing, enabled reconsideration of both the analysis and recommendations. Altogether, more than 240 separate individuals and groups were interviewed across the three sites. Conversations occurred in the familiar mix of Tok Pisin (a pidgin that is a national language in Papua New Guinea) and English, within which much of this “local public” business is pursued. Translation was available on both sides. Confidentiality agreements have been honored in this report. These investigations enabled a wealth of empirical materials to be assembled. Only the most illustrative of these, however, could be used in the body of the report itself. Conclusions drawn in the report reflect the full range of materials and perspectives assembled and analyzed. 38 “There is Security from this Place” Annex 2: The Three Phases of Market Renovation Phases of Institutional Reform in Port Moresby Markets Phases of Institutional Features of What it Looks Like Capability Market Institutions on the Ground 1. Before renovation: Function as economic concession Without physical and human often ongoing crisis of function in crisis: variously regulated and/ capital (fences, revenue, paid or violent competition, contested security), local authorities struggle, rules, limited investment or vulnerable people are subject disinvestment to violence, exclusion/ reduced patronage 2. Critical juncture/ intervention Undergoing physical New leadership grasps resources redevelopment and reform of and enrolls support; secures management and governance: new concession for some safe usages authority, rules, and resources and vulnerable people, but risks overregulation 3. Cycles of growth or regression, Securing long-term economic Targeted relaxing of exclusion to consolidating post-renovation viability or inclusion or indicating a improve commercial viability, while gains return to ongoing crisis extending the reach of security beyond the market fence and managing informal zones/usages Promoting the Safety and Economic Vitality of Port Moresby’s Local Markets 39 Annex 3: Market Sketch Maps Annex 2: Sketch maps of markets 1. Tokarara Market 1. Tokarara Market 0 40 “There is Security from this Place” Sabama Market 2. Market 2. Sabama Promoting the Safety and Economic Vitality of Port Moresby’s Local Markets 41 1 3. Gerehu Market 3. Gerehu Market 2 42 “There is Security from this Place” Promoting the Safety and Economic Vitality of Port Moresby’s Local Markets 45