Samoa's National Action Plan (SNAP) to combat land degradation and mitigate the effects of drought

Abstract

Samoa acceded the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) on 20 August 1998 two years since the Convention entered into force on 26 December 1996. As an affected country party to the Convention, Samoa has in 2000 prepared and submitted a Capacity Development Initiative Report which contains a preliminary assessment as to land degradation in Samoa and its capacity level and needs. The First National Report was produced in 2003 followed by the Third National Report in 2006. Since 2004 Samoa began the process for the formulation of its National Action Plan (NAP). The NAP commands a bottoms-up, participatory process at all levels of society, to be developed as the conceptual legal-policy framework for implementing the Convention at the national and local levels. The NAP is the core instrument to address the problem of land degradation in Samoa, in accordance with provisions and spirit of the Convention.