U.S. Embassy Charge d’Affaires (CDA) Jon Yoo today presented completion certificates to participants who successfully completed the Resilience course supported by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

The course is part of the USAID Ready Project’s partnership with the University of the South Pacific’s Pacific Technical and Further Education (TAFE) program to help Pacific Island countries become more resilient to environmental changes.  The five-month course strengthened technical skills to design and implement disaster resilience projects.  Twenty-four participants, including mid-level managers of government departments, non-governmental organizations and representatives from the private sector, completed the course.  The course was conducted fully online due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Mr. Yoo commended the commitment of course participants in completing the course.  “The U.S Government is pleased to support the skills development necessary to incorporate climate change resilience and a resilience approach to project design and implementation in Samoa,” said CDA Yoo.

This is the first resilience course supported by the USAID Ready project in Samoa.  The project is rolling out the course across 10 other Pacific Island countries.  USAID Ready works with 11 target countries – Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Republic of the Marshall Islands, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu – to achieve their climate change adaptation goals by assisting them to develop policies and legislation, access climate finance and build capacity to manage adaptation projects