Vanuatu, comprising of more than 80 islands, is one of the most disaster prone countries in the Pacific with a projected population of 243,000 in 2009.

The country’s population growth rate of 2.6 is high compared to its neighbors with 43 per cent being children under the age of 15. The resulting high dependence of children and young people on adults and communities increases their exposure to child protection such as family breakdown, violence, abuse, and lack of access to health and education services.

Vanuatu has had strong sustained economic growth since 2004. As a result a key challenge for the Government of Vanuatu is translating the economic growth and significant aid flows into new jobs and improved service delivery across the archipelago.

Save the Children the largest NGO in the country, has been working in Vanuatu for the past 25 years, in the areas of health, community education and training, community development, water supply resource development, pre-school education and direct promotion of children’s rights.

Save the Children’s work in Vanuatu includes the delivery of programs in collaboration with key partners such as the Ministry of Health (MoH), Ministry of Education (MoE) and provincial governments (Sanma, Malampa, Torba and Penama, Sanma and Tafea).

At present Save the Children manages eight different programs in 5 of the 6 provinces within Vanuatu.