Remittances in the face of disasters: a case study of rural Samoa

Abstract

In Samoa, like in most Small Island Developing States, remittances are important to sustain people's daily livelihood and become even more significant in the face of disasters. This study investigates the role of remittances in households' response to disasters. The focus is on Samoa, where participatory activities and interviews were carried out in coastal communities affected by the tsunami of 2009, and some of which were further hit by cyclone Evan in 2012. It is found that remittances are very fast in reaching those affected and remain high in the long term in order to cope with and recover from disaster. Moreover, remittances interact with external aid since remittances increase when external aid is low and decrease when external aid is higher. Households receiving remittances were able to deal more easily with immediate security needs and recovered more quickly than those with no or limited access to this resource. However, remittances also benefit the wider community, economically, socially, and culturally, for example in perpetuating local tradition. We conclude that governments and aid agencies should take into account remittances in their relief actions and recovery programs.

Remittances as aid following major sudden‐onset natural disasters

“…These incidental findings correspond with the more systematic findings of Le De et al () who analysed remittances to Samoa following the tsunami on 29 September 2009. Le De et al () reviewed monthly remittance data and found that the monthly remittance pattern for the disaster year (2009) mirrored exactly the average monthly remittance pattern in non‐disaster years (2006–08) except for two months after the tsunami.…”

“…These incidental findings correspond with the more systematic findings of Le De et al () who analysed remittances to Samoa following the tsunami on 29 September 2009. Le De et al () reviewed monthly remittance data and found that the monthly remittance pattern for the disaster year (2009) mirrored exactly the average monthly remittance pattern in non‐disaster years (2006–08) except for two months after the tsunami. When affected households were asked to rate the significance of remittances to them over a one‐year period (one month before the tsunami and 11 months after it), the significance of remittances rose to a 9 out of 10 rating for two months post disaster and fell steadily to 3 out of 10 by the end of the year.…”

“…To test the hypothesis of non‐sustained increases derived from the authors' observations of the Haitian diaspora in Toronto and the work of Le De et al (), this study investigated and graphed the long‐term trend in remittance inflows to disaster‐affected countries over the 14‐year period.…”

“…The findings of Le De et al (), and the unexpected Haitian diaspora encounters, resulted in the decision to assess here not only annual but also quarterly remittance data for Haiti, as well as long‐term remittance trends. The study discovered that there were indeed large quarterly variations (see Figure ).…”

Community Resilience to Cyclone Disasters in Coastal Bangladesh

“…Although far from being exclusively created externally, vulnerabilities are often imposed from outside [11][12][13] with little notice and little opportunity to counter them. Conversely, resiliences are not exclusively an intra-community matter, because national and international support systems are frequently assumed to exist and to be an inevitable part of a community dealing with disaster, such as remittances [61] and national social safety nets. V2R and IFRC's resilient community characteristics will not necessarily capture all such dimensions, depending how extensive the work is.…”