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Improvement of waste management is a key environmental issue in Samoa and it is one of the global issues as well. Prior to the formulation of National Waste Management Strategy, “Cleaner Pacific 2025” which is waste management strategy for pacific region, was developed and addressed key waste issues and countermeasures at the regional level with action plan for 2016-2025 (SPREP, 2014). On the other hand, Samoan government addressed waste management in the Strategy for the Development of Samoa (SDS) 2016/17 - 2019/20 under priority area 4 Environment, which also refers relevant Sustainable Development Goals (MOF, 2016). National Environment Sector Plan (NESP) 2017-2021 (MNRE, 2017) also addressed waste management under “Sustainable and Resilient Built Environment”.

How clean are Samoa's natural resources, including its air, rainforests, potable water supplies, coral lagoons and farming lands? How healthy are its people and its ecosystems? And how can we better measure the success of our national environmental and development policies and programmes which are being designed to better protect both the health and the environment of all licing things, especially with people as the central focus? Also how important is climate health to us all in the context of growing climate change impacts on Samoa, and especially with rising global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, the highest being recorded in 2006?