What Samoa can teach the world about Non-Economic Loss and Damage

When Cyclone Evan struck Samoa in 2012, it left more than damaged infrastructure. It caused the worst flooding in living memory, displacing 4500 people from their homes and into emergency shelters. The cyclone tore through cultural landmarks, displaced families from ancestral lands, and eroded traditions that bind communities together. The same was true after the 2009 earthquake and tsunami, killing approximately 192 people, when lives and livelihoods were lost, but also stories, rituals, and ways of being that could never be insured or rebuilt.

These invisible impacts - the loss of cultural heritage, identity, connection to place, and social cohesion - are what experts now call non-economic loss and damage (NELD). For Pacific Island nations like Samoa, these losses cut to the heart of what it means to sustain community and dignity amid climate disruption, regardless of whether they stick within a traditional economic framework or not. 

A recent illuminem article by James Balzer initiated this discussion, with a broader view across the Pacific Small Island Developing States (PSIDS). This article builds upon that, focusing on Samoa as a real-world case study from which we can learn about NELD.

Understanding the Fa’asamoa

Samoa comprises ten islands; eight of which are inhabited. It is further divided into 51 political districts and 265 officially recognised villages. Each village has its own traditional governance structure and fa’alupega (honorifics). Villages are governed by the fa’asamoa - or Samoan way of life - which is a collective social system of aiga (kinship), matai (chiefs), and pulega a le nu’u (village council). 

Village affairs are deliberated and resolved during a regularly held fono (meeting) overseen by the pulenu’u (village mayor), who represents the government through the Ministry of Women, Community and Social Development (MWCSD). Acknowledging these traditional dynamics is essential to designing NELD methodologies, as it provides insight on how communities actually perceive and respond to loss.

Customary land represents genealogy (gafa), chiefly authority, and the intergenerational stewardship of identity and belonging. Hence, the destruction of historical sites, village council houses, and churches in the 2009 tsunami and 2012 Cyclone Evan not only wrecked infrastructural damage but disrupted ceremonial life and the transmission of knowledge across generations.

Disasters amplify inequalities around gender. In Samoa, women bear disproportionate burdens through unpaid labour, caregiving, religious and community obligations post-disaster. Such outcomes are the result of gender hierarchies within traditional governance, where previously only men were eligible to become matai and lead village affairs, while women would bear children and care for the family.

The weakening of the va fealoa‘i, a mutual space of respect, reciprocity, and knowledge exchange, between the matai to aiga, women to fanau (children), taule‘ale‘a (untitled men) to village, amongst many vital relationships that comprise the village, can, after disaster, cause deep and sometimes irreversible damage to the authenticity and continuity of Samoan culture.

Figure 1: Systems map of governance within a typical Samoan Village (Adopted from Gero et al., 2011)

Why NELD matters for climate finance

For any intervention to be effective, it must begin with an accurate assessment. Applying a NELD-oriented framework can help expose the social system dynamics through which projects can achieve the greatest impact. As practitioners, we must first ask: How can we solve a problem if we are beginning with the wrong indicators? Followed closely in second by how can we effectively gather the right indicators that are important to our community?

A bottom-up approach, grounded in community dialogue through creative, narrative, and participatory methods, allows communities to express loss and resilience in their own terms. Rather than imposing an international standardised protocol, this approach considers stories, art, and collective narratives, often in congruence with Pacific normalcy and expression, in order to reveal systemic insights that no analytic model or top-down framework could replicate.

Despite its growing recognition in international negotiations, NELD remains a blind spot in global climate finance. Financiers traditionally think through economic frames, meaning traditional mechanisms to measure loss in economic terms - property damage, GDP impacts, and recovery costs - are more congruent with traditional finance. However, purely economic harms fail to capture intangible impacts that are less congruent with traditional financing mechanisms (the non-economic harms). Figure 2 highlights these intangible impacts. 

Figure 2: Characteristics of non-economic loss and damage in the PSIDS (Source: McNamara et al. 2021)

This gap creates a paradox: the most profound climate impacts are often those that can’t be priced. Without clear metrics or frameworks, NELD risks being sidelined in funding priorities, even as communities live with its daily consequences.

Samoa offers a critical lens through which to address this challenge, particularly in light of the recently launched $3 million USD Loss & Damage funding mechanism, demonstrating a strong authorising and finance environment for loss & damage in Samoa.

Rethinking loss through cultural and social resilience

Therefore, to finance NELD, we need to think critically about the nuanced and local governance, social and cultural institutions underpinning Samoan society. For example, this might include the Samoan village governance system. 

Its strong cultural institutions, local governance systems, and community-based adaptation practices provide fertile ground for exploring how to mobilise resourcing and money for NELD, not just through compensation, but through investments in cultural continuity, wellbeing, and social resilience.

Following Cyclone Evan, Samoan recovery efforts integrated traditional decision-making (fa’a Samoa) with external aid. Village councils (fono) coordinated rebuilding while maintaining community cohesion and cultural rituals that supported collective healing.

Table 1: Cyclone Evan 2012 - A comparison of Economic & Non-economic losses (Losses extracted & interpreted from: Government of Samoa (2013); Government of Samoa (2017))

This points to a broader insight: addressing NELD is not only about restitution but about strengthening the social fabric that enables communities to recover and adapt. Initiatives that fund cultural institutions, support language revitalisation, or protect sacred sites are not ancillary to climate resilience - they are central to it.

Causal Layered Analysis (CLA) - another way to unpack NELD in Samoa

Another way to unpack these underlying, often unseen factors of NELD includes Sohail Inayatullah’s Causal Layered Analysis (CLA) framework (Figure 3), which focuses on moving beyond the surface-level (i.e. litany), and move into the underlying systemic causes and worldviews that drive particular phenomena.

Figure 3: The CLA Heuristic (Source: Inayatullah 1998) 

The following applies a CLA framework to assess climate resilience for a Samoan village, accounting for its unique cultural dynamics and local governance system: 

Assessing loss through each of these layers extends a practitioner's lens beyond just physical restoration, but to consider how it is connected to societal meaning and connection.

Mobilising new resources for NELD

As the COP 28 Loss and Damage Fund begins to take shape under the UNFCCC, the inclusion of NELD within its scope will be critical. Practical steps could include:

1. Expanding definitions of value within loss assessments to include wellbeing, identity, and cultural heritage.

2. Supporting community-driven mapping of intangible losses to ensure local voices shape funding priorities.

3. Integrating NELD into national adaptation and disaster recovery plans, so that resources flow toward both physical and cultural resilience.

For Samoa and other Pacific Small Island Developing States (PSIDS), this approach is not theoretical  - it is existential. The ability to sustain cultural and social life amid environmental change is at the core of long-term resilience

A call for global attention

As global leaders debate the mechanics of climate finance, NELD must move from the margins to the mainstream. Samoa’s experience reveals that climate loss is not only counted in dollars, but in the erosion of heritage, belonging, and hope.

Recognising and resourcing these dimensions is essential to achieving true climate justice - one that values not just survival, but the continuity of cultures and identities that make our world rich and diverse.

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