evidence: The government initially used contingency funds for emergency pandemic response, including for urgent health needs, such as establishing testing labs; setting up special wards to boost hospitalization and care capacity; and procuring critical medical supplies. [...] It includes: deferred and cancelled taxes, license fees and charges for businesses in 2020 (796 million vatu); backdating to start of 2020 some reductions resulting from forthcoming business license reforms; the Employment Stabilization Payment (ESP) (reimbursing employers 30,000 vatu per employee per month for four months, plus an additional 12 percent to the employer, for a total of 2.5 billion vatu); SMEs (turnover of less than 200 million vatu) will also receive the value of their business license fees (roughly 400 million vatu); Commodity Support Grant will be provided to producers of copra, kava, cocoa and coffee (300 million vatu); Shipping Support Grant to facilitate farmers’ access to major market centres such as Port Vila and Luganville (100 million vatu); secondary school tuition fees are suspended for 2020 (42,000 vatu per student for a total of 510 million vatu, paid directly to schools). The package is financed by the government’s cash reserves, reprioritization of expenditures, some debt, and development partner assistance. The government closed the reception for new ESP applications on September 15, 2020, and for new SME Grant applications on November 30, 2020.