EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Only five years after the devastation caused by Tropical Cyclone (TC) Pam, Vanuatu was hit again by a category 5 cyclone. Between April 6 and 7, 2020, TC Harold tore across the northern and central islands of Vanuatu with sustained winds up to 270km per hour. It took lives, destroyed houses, food gardens, businesses and infrastructure, leaving enduring scars on families, communities and the nation. The compound nature of TC Harold and COVID-19 intensified the scale, and broadened the scope, of the human, social, economic and environmental impacts. Swift lockdown of international borders provided a precious window to prepare on the health side, but restrictions had negative repercussions on the economic activity and hindered the humanitarian response.
The Vanuatu’ TC Harold and COVID-19 Post Disaster Needs Assessment estimates that the monetary value of the disaster effects, which includes physical damage and economic losses, as a consequence of the disasters is VUV 68 billion (USD $617 million). This corresponds approximately to 61 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2020.
The assessment of the disaster effects allowed the Government of Vanuatu, through its different sectors, to identify needs in order to prioritize specific recovery interventions. The total cost of the recovery and reconstruction activities in Vanuatu has been estimated at VUV 39.5 billion (USD $358 million).
Based on the findings mentioned above, the Government of Vanuatu recently issued the Vanuatu Recovery Strategy 2020-2023.The Strategy provides a bridge to the National Sustainable Development Plan (NSDP), continuing to advance the national development aspirations in disaster recovery rather than revert to the status pre-disaster. The immediate focus of the Vanuatu Recovery Strategy is to restore essential services and infrastructure, learn from our shared experiences, adapt to new circumstances and create new opportunities. This strategy responds to the social, economic and environmental impacts of the compounding disasters to set out the recovery outcomes for the next three years.
The remainder of Volume A is organised as follows. This Executive Summary will highlight the overall findings in terms of Disaster Effects, Macroeconomic and Human Development Impact and the Recovery Needs, as outlined in the Vanuatu Recovery Strategy. Section 1 provides an in introduction to the PDNA, explaining the format of the report, the process of the assessment, the context for TC Harold and COVID-19 (including the humanitarian response phase), as well as the PDNA methodology and the set of assessments carried out. The macroeconomic Impact of the disasters is detailed in Section 2, describing the pre- and post-disaster economic outlook including macroeconomic variables such as GDP, inflation, balance of payments and fiscal balance. Section 3 presents a summary of the sectoral disaster effects and the sectoral recovery needs. For this purpose, the Vanuatu sectors were grouped in social, productive, infrastructure and cross-cutting sectors.
Volume B of this PDNA provides an in-depth analysis of every sector assessed, including the context, baseline information, governance and decision-making processes, risks and vulnerabilities, disaster effects, cross-cutting issues, identification of needs and a detailed list of recovery interventions.
