COVID-19 Response Support Project Cargo Van Handover

April 11, 2022

Hon. J. Uduch Sengebau Senior, Vice-President and Minister for Justice

H.E. Mr. Akira Karasawa, Ambassador of Japan to Palau

H.E. Mr. Gaafar Uherbelau, Minister of Health

Ms. Darnelle Worswick, Administrator, Healthcare System Administration Office

Mr. Waymine Towai, Director, National Emergency Management Office (NEMO)

Senior personnel from the Ministry of Health

Esteemed guests, representatives of the media and dear colleagues,

Alii and a very good afternoon to you all.

I am pleased to be here today and join you all for this official handover of the cargo van  under the COVID-19 Response Support in the Pacific Project. Let me also say how exciting it is for me to be here and visit your beautiful island again.

Distinguished guests, the reason for coming here today is clear. UNDP has been helping countries to urgently and effectively respond to COVID-19 as part of its mission to eradicate poverty, reduce inequalities and build resilience to crises and shocks by drawing on our experience with other outbreaks such as Ebola, HIV, SARS, TB and malaria, as well as our long history of working with the private and public sector. Palau’s vaccination rate is over 90 percent, and since 2020 the latest COVID-19 omicron outbreak in early January was managed effectively by the health authorities and still efforts are still on-going to contain the transmission uncertainty.  

This project has been implemented globally since May 2020 where UNDP Pacific Office is implementing support to the Pacific countries with approximately US$1.8 million as a part of the global proposal "Supporting an Inclusive and Multi-Sectoral Response to COVID-19 and Addressing its Socio-Economic Impact. The project allocated interventions in Palau and worked with the National Emergency Management Office (NEMO) and National Emergency Committee to identify the areas of interventions. This cargo van was one of the requests from the Ministry of Health for transportation of supplies to support COVID-19 operations.

The cargo van being handed over today will assist transfer required medical and non-medical goods and equipment smoothly.

At this juncture, I must convey my gratitude to the Government of Japan for its generous support enabling UNDP to procure this cargo van to provide needful equipment for effective COVID-19 operations in Palau.

On this occasion, we also would like to highlight that under the same project, we have already supplied other non-medical equipment such as personal protective equipment (PPE) and waste disposal carts for safer operation of COVID-19 response.

Finally, I wish to convey our appreciation to the Government of Palau for its continuous support.  I thank the Madam Vice President, the National Emergency Management Office (NEMO) and Ministry of Health for your enabling support to assist the Project team to finalize the activities under this project.

Sulang and thank you indeed.