Attachments
Executive Summary
At the time the Socio-Economic Response Plan is developed to address the impact of COVID-19 in Samoa, the pandemic has already infected over 22 million people and claimed close to 800,000 lives worldwide. The pandemic and its associated impacts show no sign of weakening.
While Samoa remains virus free, most of the Samoan livelihoods have been affected with 2/3 of the households admitting their main income has declined and close to 50% experiencing at least one job loss due to the pandemic-related restrictions.
The pre-pandemic employment participation rates in Samoa as reflected in the 2019-2020 DHS-MICS results were already critically low with only 21.6 percent of women employed and 53.7 percent of men holding a job. With no tourists coming to Samoa anymore and most of the regional and global value chains that Samoa’s businesses could access being now disrupted, the joblessness and income insecurity have most likely created new poverty, up from the 22 percent rate prior to the crisis.
Similarly, the low proportion of children with foundational reading and number skills that the DHS-MICS 2019-2020 came up with (only 45.0 percent of children age 7-14 completed three foundational reading tasks and 22.7 percent were capable of completing four foundational number tasks) indicate that the education system was already underperforming before the pandemic and may continue to deteriorate if the pandemic leads again to school closure. Distance education as an alternative to in-school learning remains challenging with only 26.5 percent of the households owning a computer and 21.1 percent of women and 19.2 percent of men using a computer withing the last three months prior to the survey.
Domestic violence that, according to the 2017 National Inquiry conducted by the National Human Rights Institute, was the highest in the Pacific Region remains of concern with 52.3 percent of the women age 15-49 reporting to have experienced physical violence in their lifetime out of whom 37.5 percent by their current husband or partner.
To identify the socio-economic impact of COVID-19 in Samoa, the UN Country Team conducted a thorough assessment using the five pillar approach of the UN Framework for the Immediate Socio-Economic Response to COVID-19. The Socio-Economic Impact Assessment (SEIA) for Samoa was released on 24 July 2020.
This Socio-Economic Response Plan (Plan) draws on the SEIA and aims at ensuring that all investments made by the UN Country Team in Samoa will address the impact of the pandemic-related restrictions.
The United Nations in Samoa, in line with the Pacific Strategy (UNPS 2018-2022), works to address and build resilience to climate-related fragility, while promoting inclusive growth, gender equality and women’s empowerment, universal access to basic services, and accountable governance. All of these development aims are jeopardized by the coronavirus pandemic. While Samoa remains free of the virus, the social and economic impact of the measures to prevent the spread of the virus to the country has been significant. The following Plan sets out the strategic interventions that the UNCT commits to pursuing in 2020-2021 in response to the findings of the SEIA.
The Plan takes note of pre-existing development vulnerabilities that the pandemic has further exacerbated. Similar to all Small Islands and Developing States (SIDS), Samoa is highly dependent on tourism, a sector of the economy particularly impacted by the pandemicrelated restrictions and is also heavily reliant on imports including food. Samoa is therefore emblematic of regional development issues that will be the primary focus of the UN’s efforts to aid countries build back better from the economic and social disruptions we are currently facing.
The Plan complements the SEIA and identifies and costs interventions across the five sector pillars – health, social protection, food security, macro-economic factors, and social cohesion. As findings of the SEIA are not definitive due to still limited cross border exchanges and absent tourism, the Plan remains a living framework as the pandemic continues. The UNCT will periodically update the SEIA and the Plan as more information becomes available to enable informed decisions on development priorities to be made by the government, the UN and other development actors and donors.