VANUATU

Vanuatu Quick Facts

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Pacific Regional
Effective Outreach

Men and Woman

Pacific Regional
Net additional
income (USD)

Pacific Regional
Value of additional
market transactions (USD)

Key Focus Area

Agriculture

Agriculture remains significant to Samoa’s economy. It provides income for around 24 per cent of households and accounts for an estimated 11 per cent of the country’s GDP. Some of the commodities exported from Samoa include coconut oil and cream, copra, taro and cocoa .

Given the relevance of agriculture to Samoa’s economy and household livelihoods, MDF focused itswork on agriculture, including on kava, feral pigs, agricultural mechanisation, agricultural inputs and cocoa. Low productivity and inconsistent supply remain a major challenge for many farmers, which is largely due to traditional, low-yielding farming practices. Agricultural firms continue to be impacted by migration-induced labour shortages, and many farmers are affected by feral pigs damaging crops.

Key Focus Area

Climate Change

Vanuatu is vulnerable to the effects of climate change, including rising temperatures and sea levels, unpredictable rainfall and intensifying cyclones. Significant government and private sector resources went into disaster recovery again in 2025 following the 2024 earthquake. Businesses and government need to find ways to increase resilience to disasters, so that Vanuatu can escape continuing disaster recovery cycles, which hamper longer-term economic planning and growth.

In 2025, MDF supported a range of activities to promote climate change adaptation and mitigation:

Training farmers in improved cocoa cultivation techniques to help them learn how to better adapt to unpredictable weather and rainfall patterns, through better plantation management.
Supporting farmers to upgrade their pig pens, reducing the vulnerability of pigs to extreme heat or rainfall, and reducing the environmental and health impacts of poor sanitation.
Supporting a solar retailer with improved marketing in the outer islands, so that communities in remote areas can understand how solar power can benefit them and begin to increase their uptake.
Supporting a study into demand for finance to access solar power among households and businesses, which showed significant interest in upgrading solar using payment by instalment schemes. This information can now be taken up by retailers and financial institutions to increase access to renewable energy.