Lesotho

This is a long-term vision for a net-zero-emission and climate resilient development strategy in Lesotho. It has been developed with the support of the African Development Bank (AfDB) and 2050 Pathways Platform, and with funding from the Africa NDC Hub. It aims to achieve carbon neutrality while ensuring equitable socio-economic growth by 2050.
As Lesotho's economy is based on agriculture, its ecosystems and economic activities are highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Key areas of action/ measures that have been identified in the LTV formulation process as central to delivering the long-term vision include:
• Supporting climate resilient and low-carbon production and value chains in agriculture, forestry and livestock management
• Implementing a climate-smart land-use regulatory framework
• Developing climate-resilient water supply systems
• Improving climate information and advisory services
• Establish early warning systems and move towards proactive risk management
• Creating financial instruments to support climate action
• Mainstreaming climate change in education and institutionalizing indigenous knowledge
• Integrating climate change considerations in public procurement
• Encouraging low-carbon, increasingly electrified mobility and climate-resilient transport links
• Leveraging increasingly affordable clean technologies powered by renewables (e-mobility, batteries)
• Developing a renewable and resilient electricity system
• Encouraging a resource-efficient circular economy

The National Climate Change Communication Strategy (NCCCS) is meant to be a tool that will guide the country's efforts to address the effects of climate change and ensure that people understand them and are able to adapt and adopt behaviour that reduces their vulnerability to its effects.
The following are the key objectives of the Strategy:
<ol>
<li>To sensitise, educate and raise awareness about climate change among different sectors of the society.</li>
<li>To interpret and translate difficult messages and concepts of climate change and ensure that people understand what they need to do to reduce their vulnerability against the climate change (behavioural change).</li>
<li>To share lessons of the climate change initiatives implemented by the Government of Lesotho and other actors.</li>
<li>To enable the Lesotho Meteorological Services and other key sectors to get feedback from the stakeholders about the implementation of the climate change initiatives.</li>
<li>To raise the profile of Government Counterparts and other development partners so as to attract meaningful partnerships, collaborations and funding for wide-ranging and inclusive solutions to climate change programmes.</li>
<li>To harmonise the indigenous knowledge and the scientific knowledge and address wrong perceptions and myths that affects adaptation and mitigation.</li>
</ol>
The guiding principles are to simplify the technical language of climate change in English and Sesotho; advocate for behaviour change; create a two-way communication platform with stakeholders; promote harmonisation of programmes and unity for climate change; and promote strong partnerships.

According to the Policy, eradicating poverty with the current climate changes for a country whose economy has been known to be dominated by the agricultural sector, can only be done through innovative ideas leading to climate-smart agriculture. Hence, the Policy promotes heavy engagement in research and development for better innovations and informed decision-making.
The government will support the adoption of technologies for emerging applications with a strong focus on technical training to initiate a rapid transition to climate-resilient agriculture, quality healthcare, ICT, manufacturing digitisation and the green economy. Climate resilient agriculture is described as an approach that includes the sustainable use of natural resources through crop and livestock production systems to achieve long-term productivity and farm incomes under climate variabilities.

This Framework guides, coordinate and leads the process of resilience building in the country to ensure that Lesotho finds a durable solution to address the multifaceted challenges posed by climate-induced shocks and stresses. Hazards that affect the country are snowfall, hailstorms, strong winds, localized floods, and early frost. This has resulted in Lesotho experiencing maintained high levels of vulnerability which have compromised food security situation of a majority of the population, especially the rural poor and very poor over the years. The triggers among others have been natural hazards with drought being the main contributor followed by heavy rains and extreme weather variability.
There are 11 pillars which are disaster and climate risk management, capacity development, social protection, access to basic services, sustainable livelihoods, sustainable management of natural resources, and access to economic/financial services, governance for resilience, mainstreaming resilience, research, innovation and development.

The National Climate Change Policy establishes 22 strategies in order to ensure that stakeholders address climate change impacts and their causes through the identification, mainstreaming and implementation of adaptation and mitigation measures, while promoting sustainable development. Its main objectives are 1) promote climate-resilient, social, economic and environmental development, 2) explore low-carbon development opportunities, nationally and internationally, in order to promote the sustainable use of resources, 3) strengthen a framework that promotes climate change governance, international cooperation, capacity building, research and systematic observations, clean technology development, transfer and use, education, training and public awareness.&nbsp; The policy sets out&nbsp; 1) strategies that include legal and other institutional arrangements, 2) resources mobilization strategies and advocates for private sector investment, 3) recommends a Monitoring and Evaluation Framework. The objective of the document is to enhance effective policy implementation, ensuring appropriate utilization of resources, communication of results to decision makers and stakeholders for future action. The implementation of this policy will undergo an independent external evaluation in five years time. The recommendations resulting from this evaluation will then feed into the revision process for the new policy.

This Act establishes a legal framework related to the protection and management of environmental resources. Art. 3 (i) specifies that the authorities in charge should prevent any interference with the climate and take compensatory measures for such interferences.

Technical analysis of the first biennial update report of Lesotho submitted on 9 November 2021. Summary report by the team of technical experts, Technical Analysis Summary Report from UNFCCC Secretariat in 2023

Lesotho. National Communication (NC). NC 3., National Communication from Lesotho in 2021

Lesotho. Biennial update report (BUR). BUR 1., Biennial Update Report from Lesotho in 2021

Lesotho First NDC, Nationally Determined Contribution from Lesotho in 2018

21,000 hectares of forested areas by 2020

Lesotho

Documents

Targets (1)