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Introduction

1.             This Fourth Country Programme Document (CPD IV: 2008 - 2012) for Lesotho has resulted from extensive consultations among major stakeholders, which led to the formulation of a UN Development Assistance Framework (2008 – 2012). This CPD IV is further informed by the Administrator’s endorsement of the High Level Panel’s “Delivering as One” recommendations in the context of the Secretary-General’s UN Reform initiative, as well as  the Africa Bureau’s strategic focus on Capacity Development for Pro-poor Growth and Accountability (CD-PGA).

Part I: Situation Analysis

2.      While, since its earlier years of political turmoil and conflict, Lesotho has made great progress in consolidating democracy following the successful 2002 general elections and local government elections of April 2005, the country still faces considerable development challenges, driven primarily by the effects of the high prevalence of HIV (estimated at 23 percent of the adult population, the third highest prevalence rate in the world). Lesotho’s human development indicators have worsened rapidly over the last decade because of the increased mortality associated with HIV and resulting AIDS-related deaths since the 1990s. Life expectancy has been steadily declining over the past decade, droping from 56 years in 1997 (UNDP, HDR 1999) to 35.2 in 2004 (UNDP, HDR 2006). Average incomes have also been falling during this period. As a result, Lesotho’s overall position in the UNDP human development index (HDI) ranking fell steadily from 127 out of 174 countries in 1998 to 137 in 2003, then to 149 out of 177 countries in 2006.  

 3.      The prevailing chronic poverty is the result of drastic structural changes to the economy since the 1990s, deriving from three main sources. In the past, 46 percent of Lesotho’s gross national product (GNP) came from the combination of: personal remittances; and, foreign transfers (for investments in the Lesotho Highland Water Project) and the booming garment industry. By the late 1990s, this massive contribution from outside sources fell by half. Besides, since the beginning of 2005, there have been some job losses in Lesotho’s garment industry when the Multi-Fibre Agreement (MFA) ended in 2004.

4.            About half of the population now lives below the poverty line. Reduced household incomes and reduced employment opportunities for the large number of returning migrant miners is perpetuating the situation of food insecurity and chronic poverty. In turn, chronic poverty and food insecurity have forced some segments of the population into desperation. This desperation has led some to engage in risky behaviour that predisposes them to further HIV infection. 

5.  The current multiple crisis is negatively affecting the environmental resource base, as well as its quality. Environmental degradation has adverse effects on livelihoods, while poverty, illness and desperation contribute to continued degradation. The major mutually-reinforcing environment-livelihoods challenges include: recurring droughts and floods; deforestation, directly linked to over-reliance on biomass as an energy source; loss of topsoil and gully formation; ineffective land tenure system; inefficient management of the fragile mountain ecosystem; and, inefficient and unsustainable agricultural practices.

6.     Following the successful general elections of May 2002 and local council elections of April 2005 in which 54 percent of the councillors elected are women, there is a growing recognition within government, civil society and international partners for the need to deepen gender-sensitive, participatory governance for effective, rights-based service delivery at the district and community levels, as well as continue with the reform of the public service systems and processes for more transparent, accountable and effective economic governance. 

Part II: Past Cooperation and Lessons Learned

7.             Within the context of its past and current cooperation activities with Lesotho, UNDP has been using its unique position as an impartial broker to bring forward the democratic agenda through strategic support to the 2002 general and the 2005 local government elections and the political process. The key lesson from this is that UNDP activities cannot be evaluated only in terms of funds expended, but also in terms of the quality of advice and support to the process of moving the democratic and development agenda forward.

 

8.            Perhaps the most important recent contribution of UNDP to the poverty reduction process has been the provision of technical and financial assistance for re-clustering the Poverty Reduction Strategy priorities and costing the related action programmes for presentation to a November 2006 Donor Round Table Conference (RTC). A Key lesson here relates to the timing of this process and the RTC event to coincide with the period of concurrent country assistance planning activities of most of Lesotho’s other key development partners (for synchronized programme cycles commencing in 2008, in the spirit of the Rome and Paris Declarations on aid coordination and aid effectiveness).  

9.            The recent Mid-Term Review (MTR) of past cooperation activities during the last two years (CPAP 2005-2007) identified a number of issues regarding programme implementation. These include: the continuing institutional capacity challenges within the Government for effective programme implementation and coordination of development assistance. A key lesson is that, despite the satisfactory overall implementation progress noted by the MTR, delays in the execution of some project activities can be attributed to the continuing weaknesses in institutional capacity, which calls for greater result-orientation. To this end, capacity assessments and development will form a central feature of the entire programme in this CPD.

10.          While focusing on results-orientation, care will be taken to ensure adequate attention to national capacity building, in the spirit of the Africa Bureau’s emphasis on strategic focus on capacity development for pro-poor growth and accountability (CD-PGA). The Country Office intends to fully support capacity development for implementing partners, through capacity diagnostics and development programmes.

11.           Within the context of delivering as one, the Country Office has recognized that it needs to work in collaboration with other UN agencies, preferably through joint, and/or pooled, parallel  programmes. Under the latter, UNDP, and, indeed, each agency, will focus on areas of its comparative advantage, within a collaborative framework that ensures complementary implementation of programmes by other agencies. The clustering of national development priorities during the November 2006 multi-stakeholder UNDAF Strategic Planning Retreat has led to the identification of four MDG-based UNDAF Outcomes for UN System support. However, UNDP will focus on those three clusters, involving four UNDP practice areas, where UNDP-supported country programme outputs can make the most effective contribution, consistent with its comparative advantage.

Part III: Proposed Programme

12.          An Integrated programme: The UNDP corporate practice areas covered by the 3 UNDAF Outcomes to which UNDP can effectively contribute country programme outputs are: HIV & AIDS; Economic Growth and Environmental Management; as well as Democratic Governance. The aim of the proposed programme is to ensure an integrated response to the complex and rapidly worsening development challenges facing Lesotho today. This country programme will seek to further this goal by supporting Government's efforts to: (a) scale up the national response to HIV & AIDS; (b) increase employment and household food security, reverse environmental degradation and promote energy efficiency; as well as, (c) deepen democratic governance in the country.  This will be pursued within the framework of joint and/or collaborative programmes involving other UN agencies and Lesotho’s other development partners (Annex 2).

13.           There are many types of linkages that unite the four sub-programmes proposed in this CPD. For instance, environmental degradation leads to a weakened natural resource base, which, in turn, can only support limited crop production.  Reduced crop production leads to food insecurity among rural households, increased morbidity and potentials for risky coping behaviour, greater vulnerability to HIV & AIDS, with chronic malnutrition hampering the effectiveness of ARVs that are currently available.  Given the fact that Lesotho is an agricultural country (nearly 80 % of Basotho live in rural areas), land degradation has a very immediate inverse link with food production and direct, mutually re-inforcing cause-and-effect relationship with poverty. Furthermore, land productivity is a function of the land tenure system (a land governance issue), given that most of the land in Lesotho is communally-owned. 

14.          The expected sub-programme results (UNDAF Country Programme Outputs) are discussed below.         

1. Cross-Cutting Issues

i)            HIV & AIDS  

15.          HIV/AIDS is now recognized as the greatest development challenge facing the country, consequently the UN Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF) recognizes HIV/AIDS as the key strategic area for all UN agencies working in the country. The focus of UNDP in this area will be to work within the context of the Joint UN Team on AIDS (JUNTA), to design, coordinate funding support for and monitor the implementation of a UN-wide joint programme on HIV (Annex 2).

16.          The expected results under the HIV & AIDS sub-programme are: Strengthening national capacity to gather, process and analyze HIV-related strategic information; Prioritisation and utilisation of HIV-related resources and programmes is informed by strategic information; Community PLHIV (People Living with HIV) groups empowered to effectively access and utilise institutions and systems; Communities enabled to develop and manage HIV-related programmes; and, Quality technical assistance is accessed by key stakeholders to scale up implementation and delivery of HIV-related programmes.

ii)             Gender

17. The expected results under the Gender programme include: Enhancing women’s participation in legislative processes and decision-making; and, National commissions and other mechanisms for the protection and promotion of gender equality in place by 2012.

2. Economic Growth and Environmental Management

18.       The expected results under the Economic Growth and Environmental Management  sub-programme are: Creation of employment opportunities for men, women and youth through enterprise development in urban and rural areas as a follow-up to the agreement of closer collaboration between UNDP and ILO on decent work; implementation of national policies for employment for youth in viable sectors;  productivity of communal land improved through implementation of integrated watershed management programmes; policies and frameworks developed on follow up to the implementation of MDG’s, Johannesburg Plan of Implementation (JPoI), PRS and the 5 Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEA) on energy and environment for sustainable development; access to sustainable energy services, electricity and cleaner fuels increased; local authorities capacitated in land,  cultural heritage and environmental management; and, Sustainable land management to combat desertification and land degradation implemented.

19.          Dimensions of this sub-programme will include: (a) support to identifying data needs and strengthening statistical capacity to generate indicators relevant for monitoring the implementation of the PRS and achieving the MDGs; (b) addressing the links among poverty, food insecurity and environmental quality; and (c)  improving employment prospects, especially for youth, by supporting the creation of an enabling national environment for the promotion of youth employment and enterprise development. UNDP will strengthen its emphasis on a comprehensive soil conservation and efficient water use strategy. The sub-programme will also enhance efforts to reduce dependence on bio-mass fuels, thus contributing to soil conservation. Private public partnerships for urban environment will be enhanced through the joint UN Habitat Sustainable Cities Programme and Public Private partnership (PPP), with the overall aim to build and strengthen the planning and management capacity of Maseru City Council. This collaboration will be further enhanced to support development of the local councils and the decentralisation process for effective public service delivery. Community participation in sustainable environmental management will be enhanced and promoted through the Small Grants Programme (SGP), under which communities will prepare proposals and access grants for community based responses to environmental management. 

3. Democratic Governance

20.       The expected results under the Democratic Governance sub-programme are: Strengthened capacity of governance institutions to support consolidation of democracy and the implementation of regional and international economic and social obligations; strengthened capacity of Parliament and Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) to play watchdog role for a stable,  participatory and accountable democracy; strengthened institutional capacities for data collection, analysis and management; national commissions and other mechanisms for the protection and promotion of human rights, children’s rights and gender equality in place by 2012; advocacy, communication and partnerships with governmental bodies and NGOs strengthened to demand improved delivery of public services; strengthened capacity of selected government institutions and other public service providers to support delivery of public services through the PSIRP; and, strengthened advocacy for the use of ICT to enhance public service delivery.

21.          Under this sub-programme, UNDP support will be provided for: strengthening and consolidating democracy through advocacy programmes to deepen people’s understanding of their roles  and obligations in support of their elected government; providing discrete  support to the institutional capacity of the Government to meet its international, development oriented commitments; contributing towards improved  capacity of civil service systems to support efficient  and effective delivery of public services; promoting respect  for human rights; advocacy towards  increased use  of information and communications technology for development;  supporting gender mainstreaming in all development interventions;  and working closely with the  Government and other partners  to strengthen the Government’s decentralisation programme.

Part IV: Programme Management, Monitoring and Evaluation

Results – Based Management

22.          The decision to implement one integrated Lesotho UNDP country programme, within the context of delivering as one, calls for greater inter-Unit coordination within the Country Office, and between it and other UN agencies, to ensure timely feedback loops, for information sharing and coordination related to joint and/or collaborative programme activities involving the other UN agencies, within the context of the UNDAF, using the results-based management (RBM) approach.

23.          The Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) Framework of the UNDAF will form the broad context that will guide the comprehensive monitoring and evaluation of this CPD.  Annual reviews of the Country Programme Action Plan (CPAP) derived from this CPD will be informed by the UNDAF M&E indicators.  Tripartite review meetings with government and other stakeholders will provide the forums for participatory, results-oriented decision-making, and also opportunities for assessing the effectiveness of the National Execution (NEX) modality. The auditing of the programme will take into account the implications of the new tool on Harmonized Approach to Cash Transfers (HACT) to Implementing Partners.    

Execution Modality

24.          The government and UNDP have agreed that National Execution (NEX) should cover 90 percent of programme activities during the current (2005 – 2007) cycle. However, notwithstanding this commitment to NEX, given the lingering capacity problems with programme implementation, and delivery rates that are far from satisfactory, it has been decided that a combination of NEX and agency execution modalities will be adopted for this CPD. All programmes in this CPD will include concerted efforts in capacity development to address implementation bottlenecks leading up to eventual 100 percent NEX coverage.         

Support to the Resident Coordinator System

25.          Being the host agency for the Resident Coordinator (RC) System, UNDP continues its financial and human resource support to the RC’s office. The RC function is critical for intra-UN agency cohesion, alignment, harmonisation and coordination as well as the coordination of other development partners, particularly through the Development Partners Consultative Forum (DPCF). UNDP will continue to strengthen the aid coordination role of Government

Partnership and Resource Mobilization Strategy

26.          UNDP will continue its work to strengthen partnerships with key donors in Lesotho and elsewhere. In particular activities to strengthen links with partners based in South Africa and non-resident UN agencies such as ILO, UNCDF, GEF, UNIFEM, UNEP, etc.,  will continue with a view to ensuring that adequate resources are mobilized and that there is awareness of the activities of UNDP in particular, and the UN in general.

Annex. Results and resources framework for Lesotho 2008 - 2011