APIA: The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) in partnership with Samoa’s Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries and the University of South Pacific conducted a two-day workshop on critical market assessments that will enable data driven decision-making for disaster response policies in Samoa.

As the Pacific is gripped by frequent climate shocks and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, amidst growing global food insecurity, understanding the function of local markets and how price fluctuations can affect people’s access to food will help to implement effective social protection policies.

The workshop, attended by local government officers, civil society organisations, managers of municipal markets and UN agencies, aimed to establish a Price Monitoring System that will analyse trends and price fluctuations of critical food and non-food items as well as the Market Functionality Index and the Minimum Expenditure Basket. Continue reading →

On a beautiful and peaceful tropical island like Samoa, food plants and crops thrive naturally. With close to 200,000 people, every family has access to land and about 97% of these families grow a variety of vegetables and crops and raise livestock, mainly cattle, pigs, and chickens, on a subsistence or commercial basis.

In Samoa, food is culture, food is family, food is, land and the ocean, it is everything. The Samoans strongly believe that food is abundant and there is no extreme starvation. While there is plenty to eat, there are serious health issues due to poor nutrition and poor dietary choices. The 2018 Samoa Household Income and Expenditure Survey (2018 HIES) findings show less than 1 person out of 20 is undernourished. It goes on to show that about 1 person in 4 does not have access to safe and nutritious food. More