As climate change tightens its grips on Lesotho, we need to seriously revisit our response mechanisms to the phenomenon.
As one of the least developed nation, Lesotho ranks 14th among the world’s countries that are most vulnerable to challenges related to climate change, but is 151st in terms of capacity to combat the phenomenon.
The country has always been over-reliant on rain-fed agriculture for food production and has a large poor rural population engaged in subsistence farming, which is relatively undiversified.
And, according to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation, vulnerability in Lesotho is characterised by high population pressure on the available arable land and natural resources, fragile and substantially degraded soils, high levels of food insecurity and poverty, and lack of infrastructure which curtails the ability of the population to deal with severe weather conditions.
At grassroots level, authorities have a crucial role of strengthening local level adaptation work and increasing the systematic support from national level. This includes improving guidance, access to stable funding, and information for local adaptation.
However, local councils in parts of Lesotho bemoan lack of coordinated support from the central government, which makes it difficult for them to respond speedily to weather-induced challenges, thereby hampering adaptation efforts.
Given these teething challenges, we would like to see more coordinated action between the central and local government in 2024.
Bear in mind that the Commonwealth Secretariat suggested in 2008 that local governments can play an important role in mitigating the causes of climate change and adapting to predicted challenges through local level policy and citizen engagement. Financial and other capacity development mechanisms need to be diversified to support local governments in this role. That is the only way to go!
