Second Resilience Development Policy Operation with a Cat-DDO

closed

The development objective of the Second Resilience Development Policy Operation for Samoa are i) to strengthen Samoa's macroeconomic and financial resilience; ii) to enhance Samoa's resilience to the effects of climate change and natural hazards; and iii) to reduce Samoa’s vulnerability to non-communicable diseases. The proposed operation is the second in a programmatic series of two development policy operations (DPOs), aimed at boosting the resilience of Samoa to some of the major risks threatening its sustainable growth and development, and includes a Disaster Risk Management (DRM) Policy Grant with a Catastrophe-Deferred Drawdown Option (Cat DDO).Under the proposed operation, the World Bank (WB) will continue to support the implementation of reforms that have been prioritized by the Government, and that are closely aligned with target areas identified in the Strategy for the Development of Samoa FY2017–FY2020 (SDS), including economic sustainability and business development, improved health outcomes, and climate and disaster resilience. There are three pillars of the operation. i) The first development objective of the proposed operation is to Strengthening macroeconomic and financial resilience. This pillar contains prior actions which will further strengthen the Government’s revenue base and reduce risks around remittance flows; ii) The second development objective supports Government’s efforts to reduce Samoa’s vulnerability to the current and long-term threats of climate change and natural hazards, particularly cyclones, earthquakes and tsunami, and is the critical pillar for the Cat DDO component of this proposed operation; and iii) The third development objective of the proposed operation supports Government efforts to reduce the vulnerability of Samoa’s population to non-communicable diseases.