By: Thoboloko Ntšonyane
Maseru – on July 12, 2024, to March 31, 2025, the Prime Minister (PM) Rt Hon Sam Matekane declares a national food insecurity disaster, due to 700 000 people facing severe food insecurity, being in urgent need of assistance.
This declaration, made pursuant to section 3 of the Disaster Management Act No. 2 of 1997.
The PM says this move is informed by a recent vulnerability assessment study that reveals that 700,000 individuals in Lesotho are experiencing severe food insecurity due to the El Niño-induced drought.
This declaration underscores the urgent need for intervention to address the extensive hunger and malnutrition resulting from the climatic events.
“In recalling the period from mid-December last year to March 2024, the Southern African Region, including Lesotho, faced the impacts of El Niño. During this time, the region experienced insufficient rainfall, resulting in drought conditions that adversely affected crops, despite initial hopes for a promising harvest in many areas.
“A national study on vulnerability revealed that approximately 700,000 Basotho are currently facing food insecurity. This number exceeds the 582,000 Basotho reported as food insecure during the 2023-2024 harvest season,” he explains.
The Premier emphasizes that addressing this crisis requires M1.2 billion, wherein the government has allocated M200 million to support vulnerable families through food-for-work initiatives.
He also warns that the drought situation is expected to worsen, significantly impacting food access, nutrition, and livelihoods.
It is feared that this national food insecurity disaster, has significantly impacted the country’s youth and women with many being breadwinners, who are among the vulnerable populations. The reports indicate that the youth unemployment rate in Lesotho was sitting at 24.51% in 2023. And in 2022, the total youth unemployment rate was at 26.66% with 18.93% being males and 37.11% for females.
According to Lesotho’s 2014 Demographic and Health Survey Key Findings, Basotho households consist of an average of 3.3 members and 36% of the households are headed by women.
The PM announced that the Disaster Management Authority (DMA) will soon release a comprehensive policy in collaboration with partners. This policy is expected to guide the government’s response, including distributing food parcels for six months; creating community-based work projects for a year or more, and developing strategies to mitigate future food insecurity threats.
He says the government, alongside its partners, is mobilizing resources to provide essential food aid and implement strategies to alleviate the crisis during this period.
Lesotho has declared a national food insecurity disaster following the severe drought conditions also affecting Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Malawi. These three countries have declared a state of disaster as they have experienced widespread crop losses, reported to be between 40 and 80 percent of their maize harvests devastated.
At an Extraordinary Summit of the Heads of State and Government of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) held in May, leaders discussed the ongoing crisis. They announced that 61 million people have been impacted by El Niño and launched a humanitarian appeal for US$5.5 billion, an appeal aimed to supplement the resources of the affected Member States and address the urgent humanitarian needs.
Matekane further calls on development partners and friends of Lesotho to assist the 700,000 people in urgent need of food support. “I appeal to the national, regional and international humanitarian intervention.”
The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) reports that: “Millions of people continue to experience high levels of acute food insecurity in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region, exacerbated by conflict, drought, the COVID-19 pandemic and economic decline. Around 36 million people in ten countries are experiencing high levels of acute food insecurity… including Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Eswatini, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Tanzania and Zambia.
“This means people can meet minimum food needs but only by depleting essential livelihood assets or through crisis or emergency coping strategies.”