Caritas Samoa together with its partners, beneficiaries and key stakeholders will celebrate the completion of the Promoting Resilience through Essentials Pre-Positioned for Samoa (PREPS) project on Friday.

The project was aimed at building the country's resilience during natural disasters with an event – marking the completion of the project – scheduled to be held at Tanoa Hotel on Friday. It is organised by Caritas Samoa.

PREPS was launched on 7 September 2020 with the goal of strengthening disaster preparedness for an effective response at all levels through the pre-positioning of emergency relief supplies at six locations in Samoa.

The project pointed out that the effects of climate change continued to unfold with the anticipation of natural disasters' negative impacts to intensify and thereby increase Samoa's vulnerability to frequent and recurrent disasters. 

To address this problem, Catholic Relief Services (CRS) and Caritas Samoa implemented the PREPS project funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (BHA). CRS and Caritas Samoa worked in collaboration with communities and local leadership with the goal that vulnerable populations in Samoa affected by disaster meet their immediate and essential needs, and live with dignity.

Part of the project includes building three warehouses to store emergency relief supplies; relocating currently fully stocked containers; purchasing emergency relief non-food items (NFIs) to supply 990 households (over 6,930 people); and training warehouse managers, community volunteers, and local leadership to maintain and distribute supplies when needed. In total, the project benefits 10,688 direct beneficiaries.

At the event on Friday, the U.S. Embassy Chargé d’Affaires, Noriko Horiuchi will deliver the keynote address.

The completion of the project comes on the back of the World Risk Index 2020 report which found that Samoa is ranked 98th in an international survey of countries’ vulnerability to natural disasters.

The report surveyed a total of 181 countries and ranked them on the basis of their exposure to potential risks from natural disasters. Among Pacific states, Vanuatu leads the index as the country with the highest risk of disasters. Samoa’s ranking dropped from 94 in 2019 to 98 in 2020.

The rankings are contained within the “World Risk Report 2020” which was jointly authored by Benedikt Behlert, Rouven Diekjobst, and other colleagues from the Institute for International Law of Peace and Armed Conflict.