Ka lebelo la Ntšoekhe – With the speed of Ntšoekhe and aligned to the call by UN Member States to accelerate the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals, this Cooperation Framework (CF) calls for accelerated pace in decision making, delivering and coordinating of development priorities, while leveraging all available resources, domestic and international, private and public, by the Government of Lesotho, the United Nations and development actors to ensure that no Mosotho is left behind and the SDGs are achieved by 2030.
This 2024 – 2028 CF has been developed at a time when the Kingdom of Lesotho and the world has experienced one of the most devastating public health crises in recent history.
The Covid-19 pandemic impacted on both the economic and social stability of countries. It exposed already existing vulnerabilities and cracked wide open the education, health, gender, and economic fault lines in-country and across regions. The Russia and Ukraine conflict further exacerbated what was already a fragile socio-economic context. The cost of living has increased and so has the number of people who are food insecure, out of employment and at risk of multiple vulnerabilities. Macro-economic stability has become an urgent goal together with expanding the fiscal space for investing in sustainable development activities and introduce social safety nets that will address poverty and inequality, support economic growth, and improve people’s well-being. In short, Lesotho has been experiencing distressed development and weakened governance systems for too long. To make inroads and speed up the process of development, governance and state-society relationships will have to improve and deliver transformation in Lesotho.
In developing the Cooperation Framework, the UN in Lesotho and the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning, implemented an inclusive process that brought together representatives from Government, private sector, trade unions, civil society, academia and development partners and the United Nations. The Evaluation of the UNDAF 2019-2023 together with the Common Country Analysis provided a wealth of experiences that informed the consultations. Three areas of focus emerged from the consultative process to inform the three key pillars upon which the outcomes are formulated with the supporting outputs and activities of this Cooperation Framework:
Good Governance and Social Equity
This pillar recognizes the essentiality of good governance and social equity as a foundation for achieving a vision of a Lesotho that is politically stable, economically viable; whose people are resilient in the face of shocks, free from violence, can access essential services and are self-sufficient. Lesotho has a long history of political instability and security concerns which the people of Lesotho must contend with and overcome.
The promise of good democratic governance, which ensures that every institution delivers its service faithfully, has not been largely fulfilled. State capacity, public resources management and social accountability have been weak. The relationship between those entrusted with leadership and the citizens has not delivered development progress; the exercise and enjoyment of rights, freedom from want or inclusion of the most vulnerable in economic productivity, nor freedom from violence. As a result, too many Basotho have been left behind for far too long. This has continued to affect the political stability and peace of the country – and requires accelerated and enhanced engagement by all stakeholders to prevent and manage conflicts and support peace building processes at various levels. The government has a responsibility to institutionalise a culture of constitutionalism, the rule of law and the promotion of human rights. This will require the implementation of the social contract embodied in the National Reforms Agenda.
Equitable Food Systems, Environmental Sustainability, and Climate Action
The pillar on food systems and environmental sustainability acknowledges the inter-connectedness of the need for the nation to be food self-sufficient on the one hand, and the dependency on natural resources such as land and water for resilience building on the other. The ability of the country and the people of Lesotho to find the balance and manage said finite natural endowments (protecting the environment including the wetlands, range lands and biodiversity) in a sustainable manner that is mutually beneficial for both people and planet, will be critical to the achievement of the government’s priorities as articulated in the revised NSDP II.
Transforming food systems has been recognised as central in the efforts to achieve all the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030. Lesotho is committed to accelerate and deepen the transformative power of food systems and inspire action to help build back better in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis in a manner aligned with the 2030 Agenda.
The UN will focus on supporting the government to strengthen food systems that are equitable and contribute to people’s nutrition, health, and well-being, restore, and protect nature; are climate neutral, adapted to local circumstances, and provide decent jobs and inclusive economies. Food production requires fertile land, access to water and renewable energy to provide healthy and nutritional food for consumption, for all groups in society.
The UN’s efforts will go beyond supporting production and consumption; to supporting efforts that help communities to access markets and active private sector participation to achieve the required level of resilience, thereby avoiding the chronic food crisis that the country has been undergoing for many years and creating a solid base for responding to shocks caused by climate change.
People’s Well-being and Economic Development
The pillar on people’s well-being and economic development goes to the heart of everyday life of people in Lesotho. Their ability to access essential life services such as healthcare services, good quality education and engage in productive economic activity for self-reliance sit at the fulcrum of achieving the sustainable development goals and ultimately achieving the political, economic, and social stability that Lesotho needs.
The Government of Lesotho’s vision for social development is “a nation where everyone enjoys an acceptable minimum standard of living and in which there are equal opportunities for people to realise their full potential.” The government has committed itself to improving the quality of life of all Basotho through interventions that address poverty, deprivation, vulnerability, and inequality comprehensively and holistically.
This pillar aims at focusing the efforts of the United Nations in Lesotho on addressing challenges of economic inequality that have caused the country, both urban and rural, to be in a situation of development distress. A focus on high unemployment levels, lack of access to good quality healthcare, high HIV prevalence and gender-based violence, poverty induced labour migration, an inadequate education system unable to meet the skills requirements of economic activity as informed by the Transforming Education Summit consultations and national commitments, and poor access to other basic services such as water and sanitation. To help close the economic gap and increase productivity, the efforts of the United Nations will go beyond supporting economic growth; to supporting macro-economic solutions that transcend financial solutions and ensure that vulnerable communities and key populations are not left behind. A healthy, well-educated, and skilled population, evidenced through the high human development index and based on the foundation of being able to access and exercise human rights, is a goal. This is a catalyst that will drive the economic transformation of Lesotho as productivity is highly dependent on a healthy, well-educated, and skilled population. The enabling environment for such a transformation is also dependent on the ability of public institutions, systems, and services to successfully frame and implement a coherent integrated policy framework, based on principles of equity, accountability, transparency, and efficiency. The UN will focus on supporting the improvement of the quality and access of healthcare services and quality of education for all, including leveraging technology to ensure that Basotho children are not technologically left behind.
The pillars have been translated into three outcomes which are supported with 16 outputs and accompanying activities, and with each having a theory of change. The overarching pathway of transformation is based on the understanding that a stable governance system, founded on the principles of good governance, and supportive of people’s exercise and enjoyment of human rights will provide stability for economic productivity and growth, delivery of quality essential services, including food resilience, and will foster both people’s well-being and environmental sustainability.
The UN country team in Lesotho, after exploring and determining what capacities and resources would be required to contribute to the implementation and delivery of the CF, has come up with a joint statement of commitment. The aim is to leverage the strengths of each UN Entity active in Lesotho and increase efficiencies through joint programming. The current gap in the resourcing of the CF will require concerted efforts from UNCT, the government and development partners to ensure that resources are made available, domestically, and internally as well as through the private sector. The key message of the CF is that, since many Basotho have been left behind for far too long, acceleration of delivery must be a priority hence, delivering Ka lebelo la Ntšoekhe!
