UNDP's Environment and Energy programme focuses on strengthening the capacity of the Government of Lesotho to manage environment change and adopt an integrated approach to the sustainable management of natural resources towards achievement of the Millennium Development Goals, especially Goal 7 – Ensuring Environmental Sustainability. It is in line with the overall national programme for tourism, environment and cultural development as elaborated in the Government of Lesotho's Poverty Reduction Strategy (PRS) and Vision 2020.

This approach will combine promoting the use of sound environmental management practices in order to stop and reverse land degradation in the country, with the implementation of the concepts of conservation of biodiversity through proper farming and grazing methods. In addition to this, environmentally friendly energy technologies will be promoted with the aim to reduce the high dependence on biomass for energy, which contributes to accelerated rate of soil erosion as a result of soil cover loss. Burning of Biomass also contributes to respiratory diseases, which are easily contracted by people living with the HIV.

The Environment programme will be streamlined for an effective overall response to the myriad national challenges including widespread poverty and HIV&AIDS through mainstreaming sustainable development principles in the implementation of the PRS. The success of the current UNDP assistance to national policy to scale up the fight against HIV/AIDS and the process of the government of Lesotho to decentralize services has created new opportunities for sustainable land and natural resource management as it depends on a simultaneous and focused transformative programme delivery that seeks to break the vicious cycle of HIV&AIDS, Poverty and Food Insecurity at community level.

Areas of Support

1. Adaptation to Climate Change

To address the serious challenges Lesotho is facing with regards to a degrading environment due to extensive use and the effects of climate change, UNDP Lesotho is currently developing several Climate Change Adaptation programmes in collaboration with GEF and partners such as the Government of Japan. These programmes will form the critical backbone of the UNDP environment portfolio in 2010 and beyond.

2. Public Private Partnerships for Urban Environment (PPPUE)

The Government of Lesotho has committed to ensuring an integrated response to the development challenges facing Lesotho’s urban areas. It works in joint partnership with the UN Habitat Sustainable Cities Programme with the overall aim to build and strengthen the planning and management capacity of Maseru City Council and its development partners. It seeks to provide a favourable policy environment for the provision of services for the urban environment and enhancing public private partnerships in Lesotho

3. Global Environment Facility (GEF) Programmes/Projects

• Lesotho Renewable Energy - Based Rural Electrification (LREBRE)

For a number of years, Global Environment Facility has been and continues to be one of the major funding bodies for environmental programmes in Lesotho. GEF is assisting in the areas of conserving natural resources and use of alternative energy source as a means of halting and reversing the degradation of land in Lesotho. With respect to this, UNDP Lesotho will enhance efforts to reduce the dependence on bio-mass fuels, thus contributing to soil conservation; especially through promoting the use of renewable energies at the household and community levels. This will be done through the current Renewable Energy project that is being developed by the Rural Electrification Unit at the Department of Energy, which will be implemented through 2012.

• GEF Small Grants Programme Lesotho - The Vision of the GEF – SGP Country Programme for Lesotho is “to protect the natural heritage of Lesotho through empowerment of local grass-root level communities to engage in viable partnerships for undertaking environmental management projects that generate sustainable livelihood benefits and preserve the integrity of ecosystems of global significance.”

• Sustainable Land Management - The GEF-Funded Sustainable Land Management project "looks to improve biodiversity conservation and food security, and to reduce rural poverty by improving land management practices in the highlands of Lesotho."