PCRAFI Country Note Samoa

In 2012 Tropical Cyclone (TC) Evan offered a
distressing reminder of Samoa’s exposure to natural
hazards. TC Evan came only three years after the
earthquake and tsunami of 2009, which affected
2.5 percent of the country’s population, causing
143 fatalities and associated economic losses
equivalent to 20 percent of gross domestic product
(GDP).
///The economic growth of Samoa has been
impacted in the past few years by two major
disasters: the tsunami in 2009 and TC Evan
in 2012./// Growth was also impacted by the global
financial crisis. Overall GDP contracted by 5.1
percent following the tsunami in 2009, but it has
gradually increased in subsequent years. Following
TC Evan, real GDP declined by 0.4 percent. Growth
in GDP rebounded to 2.2 percent in 2013/14 as
the reconstruction program commenced (World
Bank 2014). A number of options to improve the existing
DRFI measures have been presented for
consideration:///
(a) develop an overarching disaster risk financing
strategy aligned to existing processes;
(b) develop an operations manual detailing the
processes required to facilitate swift postdisaster
budget mobilization and execution;
and
(c) develop an insurance program for key public
assets.