POVERTY: SOUTHERN AFRICA: Floods leave Angolan returnees stranded

JOHANNESBURG, 6 January 2012 (IRIN) -

 Photo: Tomas de Mul/IRIN
The Zambezi is prone to flooding annually
Several thousand Angolan returnees from the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are stranded by floods in northeastern Angola. They are among the first casualties of what promises to be a very wet rainy season in parts of southern Africa.
“At least 50,000 people - 24,000 of them returnees - in 10 villages in Uige Province [northeastern Angola near border with DRC] have been affected by the flooding, rains and hailstorms in the past four months,” said Antonio Maiandi, head of the Evangelical Reformed Church of Angola, which has been trying to help those affected. The rainy season here tends to be longer than elsewhere in Angola.
“It is still pouring hard. At least 1,142 houses have been destroyed by the rains. Each family with shelter is now hosting other families,” said Maiandi, adding that the returnees, who had sought refuge from the civil war in Angola which ended in 2002, were putting enormous pressure on locals, and organizations such as his.
“The local population who are mostly farmers have been severely affected. Their cassava [staple food in Angola] and groundnut crops have been destroyed, so there is not enough food to go round.”
The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) restarted formal repatriation of Angolans in November 2011 after logistical and other problems forced the process to stop in 2007. DRC is home to some 80,000 Angolans refugees, according to UNHCR.
The new return initiative comes after a UNHCR survey in 2010 found that 43,000 wanted to return home, and following a tripartite agreement between Angola, DRC and UNHCR (signed in June 2011), around 20,000 people signed up for help to return. The agreement came about after years of tense relations between the two countries: Angolan and Congolese nationals have been expelled from the two countries regularly.
Each family with shelter is now hosting other families
“The local population is extremely poor and unable to support the returnees,” and “people are still coming in every day,” said Maiandi.
UNHCR in Angola told IRIN they took a break in December 2011 and would resume formal repatriation on 17 January, but did not have an update on the number of people who had already arrived.
According to aid workers, increasing instability in the DRC following the recent disputed elections could be prompting more people to leave.
Maiandi said the returnees had not received adequate support from the authorities and church organizations had limited resources.
Meteorologists for the Southern African Development Community (SADC) have predicted normal to above normal rains for most of the region from January to March 2012 largely because of the continuing effects of the 2011 La Niña event. Thousands of people in the region were displaced and scores killed in early 2011 as a result of heavy rains and flooding associated with La Niña.

Zimbabwe
As the rainy season begins here, aid workers and disaster prevention teams are closely monitoring water levels in the all-important Zambezi river, the continent's fourth largest.
The authorities have issued a flood alert after being forced to release water from the swollen Kariba Dam on the Zambezi earlier than usual in the rainy season.
The Zambezi River Authority (ZRA) which usually opens the spillway gates of Lake Kariba in the last two weeks of January was forced to open one of the gates on 3 January. It has advised people living downstream to evacuate their homes.

Zambia
Zambia is in for a mixed season. Dominicano Mulenga, national coordinator of Zambia's Disaster Management and Mitigation Unit, said a plan had been drawn up to help 368,953 people likely to be affected by rain and dry spells. While northwestern and western parts of the country had seen heavy rain, southern, eastern and parts of central Zambia were likely to receive little or no rain, he said.
The water level in the Zambezi was higher than at the same time in 2011, he added. “We have had three seasons of heavy rainfall and the ground is saturated with water, making it more prone to flooding.”

Namibia
Namibians, currently experiencing a heat wave, are eager for rain, said Guido van Langehove, chief of the Namibia Hydrological Services. Southern African Development Community (SADC) meteorologists have forecast normal to above normal rains for Namibia over the next three months. “It was the same forecast last year and we recorded three times the normal rain,” van Langehove pointed out.
The Caprivi Region, Namibia’s poorest area, is prone to annual flooding.
Japhet Itenge, director of Disaster Risk Management in the Office of the Prime Minister, said they were prepositioning essential commodities and relief tools as part of their contingency plans.

Lesotho
Lesotho has not received adequate rainfall in the past few months, a spokesman for the country’s meteorological services told IRIN. “SADC has forecast heavy rains for Lesotho in the coming weeks. We are worried it can cause early frost and destroy crops that have already been planted,” he said.
Lesotho and Namibia have food insecurity levels greater than their five-year averages due to the severe flooding experienced during the last growing season, according to FEWSNET.

Mozambique
The Mozambican authorities have begun to release water from the Cahora Bassa Dam on the Zambezi. People living mainly along the lower Zambezi basin and in Buzi, Save, and Pungue basins, including Beira city, are on alert.
Sofala Province in central Mozambique is currently distributing items such as bicycles, stretchers, masks, gloves, megaphones and boats, according to the Mozambique Red Cross; and members of seven local disaster risk management committees established in Beira City are cleaning the drainage system.
The National Institute of Disaster Management (INGC) is monitoring the rivers Montepuez, Licungo, Mutamba, Pungué, Buzi, Save, and Maputo, said FEWSNET. In the Zambezi and Limpopo river basins, FEWSNET warned of a near-average-to-high probability of flooding.
João Bobotela, CARE’s emergency response coordinator in Mozambique, said INGC and local authorities had been running flood simulation exercises since November 2011 to prepare communities for sudden evacuations.

Botswana
Arid Botswana has not received good rains in the past few months. “We are expecting average rains which might help crops,” said a spokesman for the Botswana Meteorological Services.

Malawi
More rains have been forecast for southern Malawi, where land adjacent to the River Shire, one of the most food-insecure parts of the country, is prone to flooding. Parts of the region, which has seen an outbreak of foot and mouth disease and a hike in food prices, are in crisis mode, warned FEWSNET.

South Africa
Much-needed rain has fallen in South Africa’s major maize-producing northern Free State area in the past few weeks. The government and USAID’s Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWSNET) say the country has adequate supplies, but global maize stocks are low, putting considerable upward price pressure on South African white maize.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=94598

POVERTY: LESOTHO: Pastoralists fear land “modernization” act

MASERU, 1 December 2011 (IRIN)

 Photo: Tomas de Mul/IRIN
A new land tenure system is raising concerns among pastoralists

Livestock herders in Lesotho are suspicious of the government’s motives for “modernizing” the land tenure system, fearing it will bring about a radical change in their way of life and deprive them of their birthright to land.
“This land act is not for us, it’s for people sitting in the highest seats of government and in the fancy chairs in the city,” Khotso Lehloka, secretary general of the Lesotho Herders Association (LHA), which represents between 17,000 and 20,000 livestock herders, told IRIN.
About three-quarters of Lesotho’s 1.8 million people derive their livelihood from agriculture, although only around 10 percent of the land is suitable for arable farming.
Constitutionally, all the land belongs to King Letsie III and is held in trust by all Basotho males or heads of household. Land acts passed in 1968 and 1979 did not contain a formal lease-based tenure system because land was regarded as communal.
The 2010 Land Administration Authority Act has broken from past practice by allowing security of tenure, in the hope of luring foreign direct investment to act as a stimulus for the rural economy. A growing population and land degradation are also putting greater pressure on a limited resource.
“The Land Act is part of an overall strategy to modernize the economy of Lesotho, so that investors can come, start a business and receive mortgage financing and insurance,” planning and finance minister Timothy Thahane told IRIN. “This is the kind of process that is necessary in a modern economy.”
The Land Act is part of an overall strategy to modernize the economy of Lesotho, so that investors can come, start a business and receive mortgage financing and insurance
The Human Development Index of the UN Development Programme (UNDP) ranks this mountainous country, which is completely surrounded by neighbouring South Africa, at 160 out of 180 nations.
Each year about 350,000 people routinely face food insecurity, and falling food production necessitates importing between 60 and 70 percent of the national requirement.
The Act establishes the Land Administration Authority (LAA), an autonomous agency of the Ministry of Local Government and Chieftainship that will be responsible for record keeping, the regulation and allocation of land and rentals, and the approval of foreign ownership, which will now be permitted in partnership with a local national holding at least a 20 percent stake.
The goal of these measures is to provide “secure land tenure for all citizens and promote economic growth”. Section 77 of the LAA says “A citizen of Lesotho shall be entitled to the lease free of ground rent of land, which he leases and occupies for his own residential use.”
The Authority has conducted pilot projects in a few selected villages and LAA leasing director Letele Mosae says the system will start rolling out in 2012.

Inefficient land management
Tsoeu Petlane, a researcher who works in Maseru, capital of Lesotho, for the Johannesburg-based think-tank, South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA), told IRIN the traditional communal system of land ownership had led to inefficient land management.
“Every male Basotho is entitled to inherit plots of land, but while families expand, land does not, so the plots kept getting smaller and smaller. Because this was all done informally, eventually there were a lot of disputes” he explained.
The government is constantly involved in resolving land disputes, and the Act will ensure property is surveyed and documented, along with foreign ownership boosting investment, but there are concerns about how the new system will affect pastoralists.
“There are some unresolved questions,” Petlane pointed out. “What happens to traditional grazing lands? If those formerly communal grazing lands are bought up, where will herders without land feed their cattle?”
A SAIIA report in September 2011, Implementing the ARPM [African Peer Review Mechanism] Views from Civil Society, noted: “It remains unclear to what extent the new system will also address the conflict between chiefs and the state in regard to land allocation and management, as well as inter-communal conflict over land resources which are managed by chiefs.”

“Use it or lose it”
In a direct challenge to land as a Basotho birthright, the inclusion of a “use it or lose it” clause permits the authorities to take land that has not been cultivated for at least three years.
“Sometimes you cannot use land due to economic reasons - it’s not fair that it would be taken away from you just because of that. Governments are supposed to empower people to teach them to use the land to produce food more effectively, rather than enabling outsiders to come in and do it,” said Lehloka.
“The possibility of land being bought and sold, and the payment of ground rent, are highlighted as a possible cause of poverty and landlessness. Those who cannot afford the rent will be forced to sell, which will leave them landless and even more vulnerable. The ‘use it or lose it’ principle, which gives powers to authorities to dispossess lease holders of their right to land for not using it, is seen as another effect of the act that will promote poverty,” the SAIIA report said.
Mosae said it was wrong to term it a “use it or lose it” clause - it was a reference to “abandoned land”.
He said, “Where land is required for either public purpose or public interest, there is a stipulated procedure whereby, among others, the occupier of the land in question must be consulted and agreement must be reached. Thereafter, an amount of compensation must be agreed.”
News of the new land tenure system does not appear to have reached rural communities. Victor Letlaka, 33, a herder and subsistence farmer providing for his wife and five children, told IRIN he was unaware of the new Act and the changes it may bring.
“We were given this by our chief,” he said, pointing to his half-acre plot on the side of a hill in Mokhotlong, the main town in Mokhotlong Province, about 150km from Maseru. The local chief has the authority to dispossess Letlaka of his land at any time, but he is unconcerned.
People simply weren’t made aware of the Act and what its impact will be, so we feel the government may use these laws to hurt or take advantage of the very poor or marginalized
“We are grateful that he gave us this piece of land. If we had to move we would probably get given another... I don’t think there’s a problem with how this happens, it works fine without Maseru government rules.”
The LHA intends to raise greater awareness of the Act. “The government didn’t do enough to talk to people when they were debating and signing the Land Act. People simply weren’t made aware of the Act and what its impact will be, so we feel the government may use these laws to hurt or take advantage of the very poor or marginalized.” Lehloka said.
“The herdboys feel like their autonomy and freedom is jeopardized by this formalizing process, but the reality is we need to coordinate grazing and land recovery better,” said minister Thahane. “Land issues cast against so many vested interests is always controversial, but it is necessary for Lesotho’s modernization.”
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=94364

POVERTY: LESOTHO: Textile industry gets a lifeline

MASERU, 24 November 2011 (IRIN)

 Photo: Christopher MacLean/IRIN
Lesotho’s textile industry constitutes close to 20 percent of GDP

The Lesotho Government plans to spend 100 million maloti (US$12.7 million) over the next two years in an effort to breathe life into the crucial textile industry.
"The objective... is to stabilize employment in the textile industry and provide capital for companies so that they can take advantage of the global [economic] recovery," Dr Timothy Thahane, Minister of Finance and Development planning, told IRIN. "It's harder for African countries to stay competitive, but this industry is really important to the Lesotho economy, so we have to do what we can."
Lesotho's textile industry grew rapidly in the 1990s and early 2000s, thanks in large part to the African Growth and Opportunities Act (AGOA), which gave 34 eligible countries in sub-Saharan Africa duty-free access to US markets, and the Southern Africa Customs Union (SACU) credit certification scheme that allowed textile-exporting companies to earn rebates on duties they paid on imports used for production.
However, the industry has been hit hard in the past few years: the SACU scheme ended in March 2010, while the flagging US economy has reduced exports.
In 2005, the textile industry comprised 45 factories and employed around 55,000 people, making it the largest formal sector employer in the country. Exports amounted to roughly $500 million per year. Today, 23 factories employ 33,000 workers - a decline in profits and employment of 40 percent - and exports amount to an estimated $300 million.
The industry still contributes close to 20 percent of Lesotho's annual gross domestic product, and is its largest employer in a country where the unemployment rate is around 40 percent.
"One textile worker can support four to five family members on their wage, so the impact of job losses in this sector across the entire country's economy is critical," said Thahane.
Minimum wages for textile workers are set at 778 maloti ($92) per month.

External factors
Many of the challenges facing the industry are beyond control of the garment companies or the government.
"Exports are down because of the US economy, the poor exchange rate, and the expiration of the SACU certification scheme" said Chin-Yi Lin, president of the Lesotho Textile Exporters Association (LTEA). "We need the US economy to recover, and the exchange rate to become more favourable in order for our industry to bounce back."
The industry is also facing increasing competition from Asia, where production costs are much lower, partly because textile companies can source raw materials locally. "Our lack of economies of scale, the fact that we have to buy goods from far away and bring them to Lesotho, is a competitive disadvantage," said Thahane.
Lesotho's currency, the maloti, which is tied to the South African rand, continues to strengthen against the dollar, rising more than 8 percent in 2010 and exacerbating the situation by driving up the costs of exports to American buyers.

Potential "catastrophe"
Until recently, the AGOA agreement and the SACU certification scheme could offset any competitive disadvantages Lesotho-based companies had. The SACU scheme enabled companies to import fabric and other supplies cheaply from Asia, but it expired after concerns that it was being abused by those who were using it to import items from Asia unrelated to textile production.
No announcement has been made about plans for a replacement incentive and AGOA is set to expire in 2015, a development that Johnny Lin, executive secretary of the LTEA, described as "a catastrophe for Lesotho and other African AGOA beneficiary countries".
"Textile manufacturers will not be able to compete against Asian countries in both price and lead time. A couple of factories might survive this change, but most of them would have to shut down their operations in Lesotho because of higher production costs," he predicted.
However, Thahane pointed out that US President Barack Obama’s administration has expressed its intention to extend the agreement. At a State Department briefing earlier this year, Deputy US Trade Representative Demetrios Marantis said his department was working towards "a seamless renewal of AGOA when it expires in 2015."
Thahane did not divulge details of the plan, which is still being formulated, but said the aim of the $12.7 million capital injection is to keep the textile industry afloat until the global economy bounces back and Americans start buying bigger quantities of jeans and t-shirts again.
"There's not much we can do about the US markets or the exchange rates,” Thahane said. “But we can make sure we are ready for the recovery."
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=94302

TUBERCULOSIS: Three African health ministers make the case for consigning TB to medical history

April 19, 2011
Dr. Aaron Motsoaledi, Dr. Mphu Ramatlapeng, and Mr. Benedict Xaba are, respectively, the ministers of health from South Africa, Lesotho, and Swaziland.
Today marks a historic step in the fight against infectious disease in the developing world. As the health ministers of South Africa, Swaziland, and Lesotho, we stand united in purpose to call on the international community to help us move toward eliminating tuberculosis from the planet.
That goal might seem overambitious or unrealistic. It's not. Cheap, effective treatments for TB already exist. The standard antibiotic cocktail costs just $20. Countries around the world have proven that they can cure over 85 percent of TB patients once detected and provided with proper treatment.
One obstacle to eliminating TB has been the lack of a reliable and rapid tool for diagnosing the disease. Nearly a third of all tuberculosis cases go undetected. Each undetected case goes on to infect an average of 15 additional people annually. It's therefore no wonder that we've been unable to break the global tuberculosis epidemic, which has killed an estimated 100 million people since 1960.
But thanks to recent technological breakthroughs, as part of a comprehensive approach to TB control and management, we may now be able to overcome this hurdle.
In 2009, there were 9.4 million new TB infections, and an estimated 1.7 million died from the disease. Africa was hit hardest—the continent is home to 30 percent of the globe's TB cases despite comprising just 11 percent of its population. In Swaziland, the World Health Organization estimates that 1,257 new TB cases occur annually for every 100,000 people. Swaziland's government has declared the TB situation a national emergency.
The TB problem isn't confined to adults. In Uganda, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, and South Africa, over 16 percent of TB patients are children. The continued prevalence of TB has also hampered the fight against HIV/AIDS. Patients with compromised immune systems are easy targets for TB. TB is the leading cause of death among HIV-positive Africans. Of the 380,000 people with both diseases that die each year, 80 percent live on our continent.
Fortunately, we see a great opportunity with a cutting-edge TB diagnostic called "GeneXpert," which was recently announced and certified by the World Health Organization. The first major scientific advancement in the battle against TB in nearly 50 years, GeneXpert could end our struggle. GeneXpert can give a 30 percent more accurate result of whether a person has tuberculosis than current tests.
Perhaps more importantly, GeneXpert could prove invaluable in battling drug-resistant tuberculosis, as it can detect drug-resistant bacilli within two hours. Most current tests take three months to do the same.
Many TB patients don't take their medication as prescribed. That can lead to the development of drug-resistant strains of the disease, which are more difficult and expensive to cure.
The World Health Organization estimates that 440,000 people had drug-resistant TB in 2009. About a third of them died that year. In South Africa, researchers have reported cases of the extremely deadly, "extensively drug-resistant" version of TB in every province, including an alarming 468 cases in the town of Tugela Ferry alone.
Since its identification in South Africa, extensively drug-resistant TB has been diagnosed in many parts of the world. Africa's ability to detect drug-resistant TB is limited, partly because of inadequate numbers of top-notch laboratory facilities.
While drug-resistant forms of TB have been difficult to diagnose with current technology, the new GeneXpert tool accurately detects drug-resistant TB 95 percent of the time.
In addition, GeneXpert will assist in the fight against HIV. For every 100 people living with HIV who have active TB, GeneXpert successfully detects the disease in 80 of them. A traditional diagnostic test finds it in just 40 of them.
The South African government, with support from the United States, began rolling out GeneXpert in every province on World Tuberculosis Day, March 24.
http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2011/04/19/how-to-wipe-out-tuberculosis

POVERTY: LESOTHO: Learning to do more with less

 Photo: ALAFA
Lesotho's textile industry has been hit by the recession in the US

MASERU, 18 February 2011 (IRIN) - The Lesotho government has warned its citizens to prepare for a difficult year ahead as the tiny, land-locked country absorbs the effects of the global economic slowdown, including a sharp decline in crucial revenue from the Southern African Customs Union (SACU).
For years, Lesotho has depended on receipts from SACU - a 100-year-old customs union made up of Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland and Lesotho - for up to 60 percent of its budget.
The global economic crisis saw Lesotho's share of SACU revenue decline by about 50 percent in the 2010-11 financial year and while those revenues are expected to recover somewhat this financial year, the amount entering the national coffers will continue to decrease as the government repays a deficit owed to the Union.
“The scenario is bad because the country is dependent to a great extent on external sources like SACU which is not very healthy," said Alka Bhatia, an economic adviser with the UN Development Programme in Lesotho.
In a budget speech on 14 February, Finance Minister Timothy Thahane summarized Lesotho's dire financial situation. Not only have government revenues declined, he said, but "Lesotho’s economic growth has shrunk; unemployment, especially among the youth, has increased; our exports have contracted; and, Basotho mine workers in South Africa have been retrenched… This turmoil has placed Lesotho and its people between a rock and a hard place. We must make hard choices."
Analysts fear those choices may include cuts in social spending which would be particularly devastating for a country where about 60 percent of the population lives below the poverty line and 23 percent of adults are infected with HIV.
Speaking to IRIN just ahead of the budget speech, head of economic policy in the Ministry of Finance Motena Ts'olo said expenditure cuts would not include reductions in health and education budgets. Nor would public sector jobs be cut as they have in Swaziland, another country struggling to come to terms with its heavy reliance on SACU receipts.
"Obviously, when there's not enough revenue resources, you can't do things as quickly as you want to do them," said Ts'olo.
She added that significant damage to crops and infrastructure resulting from recent heavy rains is likely to compound the country's financial problems over the coming year. The Disaster Management Authority has estimated the cost of responding to the flood damage at US$68.5 million. In his budget speech, Thahane said the social protection budget would actually increase by 7 percent and public servants would receive a 5 percent salary increase, although there would be a freeze on all new public service posts.

Progress halted on MDGs
Thahane acknowledged that the lack of resources resulting from the global economic crisis had halted Lesotho's progress on some of the Millennium Development Goals, particularly those relating to reductions in child and maternal mortality, combating HIV and TB and eradicating extreme poverty and hunger.
Noting that this year's budget had been the most difficult the government had ever had to put together, he said: "The time has come when we must all learn to do more with less for the sake of our country."
Earlier this month, the government announced that it was about to begin the process of developing a National Strategic Development Plan that will come into effect in April 2012 and run for five years.
In part, the plan will aim to wake the country up from what Prime Minister Pakalitha Mosisili described as the "deep slumber" that SACU revenue had lulled it into.
"[We] need to move away from this dependency on the SACU revenue towards internally generated revenue," said Ts'olo.
She added that the country was also too dependent on the textile industry, which employed over 45,000 Basotho but had suffered significant losses in recent years due to the economic crisis and lowered demand from its sole market - the USA.
"We need to diversify away from textiles into other areas," she said, suggesting that tourism was one sector that could be expanded and the export of local products like sandstone was another.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=91968

POVERTY: LESOTHO: Floods take heavy toll

THABA-TSEKA, 15 February 2011 (IRIN) -
From a distance, the fields of maize that cover almost every hillside in Lesotho's Thaba-Tseka District look green and lush. On closer inspection, the plants have a sickly yellowish hue and the heads of corn that should be ripening in time for the April harvest are nowhere to be seen.
For most of the farmers in this remote, mountainous district, and in many other parts of Lesotho, there will be no harvest this season. Heavy rains which started in December and are expected to continue through much of February have washed away top soil and nutrients and left fields waterlogged and weed infested.
The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that in some of the worst hit districts up to 60 percent of crops have been destroyed while nationally at least 4,700 livestock, mainly sheep and goats, have died. [ http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/50394/icode/ ]
Lesotho's mountainous topography and erratic weather mean it already produces only enough grain to meet about 30 percent of its needs. [ http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=86910 ] The country had increased its production of maize - the main cereal crop - and sorghum during 2010, but the heavy rains are likely to reverse those gains.
"It's going to affect food security in the worst way because Lesotho doesn't produce enough food as it is," Matsiliso Mmojaki, head of the national Disaster Management Authority (DMA), told IRIN.
Out of a population of just over two million, Mmojaki estimated 250,000 will need food assistance in the coming months.

Not a disaster?
In the village of Phaila, in Thaba-Tseka District, Tsepo Phaila, 31, watched one afternoon in early January as a river of water swept down a hillside, tearing up the trees he and his family had planted for firewood, and flooding their maize field. By the time the water receded, only a few broken stalks poked up from the mud.
"We can't plant there any more because the topsoil has washed away," Phaila said.
The family has one other smaller field where maize plants are still standing but are too rain-damaged to produce a harvest. "There's nothing we can do right now," said Phaila, explaining that the maize and the firewood provided the only source of income to support himself and nine other family members.
Many other households in the village and across northern Lesotho are facing a similar predicament, but the government has yet to declare the situation a disaster.
"Should we say because the government hasn't declared it a disaster, it's not a disaster?" asked Teboho Chalane, the Ministry of Agriculture's extension officer for Thaba-Tseka District. "A lot of people have been affected; there will be no maize for them, so we need to do something to make sure they get something to eat."
He added that if seeds could be distributed quickly, there was still time for affected households to grow vegetables before the start of winter. In the longer term, said Chalane, communities needed to become less reliant on maize and start keeping livestock such as poultry and pigs that could be bred and sold.
As for the fields of stunted maize plants, his advice to farmers was: "Take a scythe and cut them all down."

Costly response
Like many parts of Southern Africa, Lesotho had been warned to expect a heavier than usual rainy season due to the La Niña phenomenon, [ http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportID=90980 ] but Mmojaki of the DMA said "the intensity [of the rains] was just beyond our imagination; it has never really happened here."
A rapid assessment of the damage conducted in January found that in addition to the extensive crop losses, a number of roads had been washed away making some health facilities unreachable. Stocks of essential medicines, including antiretrovirals (ARVs) and drugs to treat diarrhoea, an outbreak of which had spread across the country, were running low.
The DMA has developed a contingency plan and submitted it to the government for approval. It includes urgent repairs to roads, bridges and water supply systems as well as assistance to farmers in the form of subsidies, seeds and fertilizers.
The plan comes with a price tag of US$68.5 million, an amount that economic policy head in the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning Motena Ts'olo said the government would struggle to raise at a time when the global economic slowdown and reduced revenues from the Southern African Customs Union (SACU) [ http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportID=90208 ] were already straining the national budget.
"The rain has created even more pressure and I don't know how we'll manage, but somehow we'll have to," she told IRIN.

Http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=91925

POVERTY: LESOTHO: Hard times delay MDGs

JOHANNESBURG, 25 June 2010 (IRIN) - Life is mostly hard in the mountainous kingdom of Lesotho, but the chronic droughts that seem signal the unfolding impact of climate change are projected to become more severe, and could squeeze cultivable land from an already slim 10 percent to a mere three percent in 25 years. "While other factors contribute to droughts and the shrinking of cultivable land, climate change exacerbates the situation," said a new UN Development Programme (UNDP) assessment of countries' progress towards achieving the eight UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which range from halving extreme poverty to halting the spread of HIV/AIDS and providing universal primary education by 2015. Erratic weather, lack of access to agriculture inputs, soil erosion and high HIV/AIDS prevalence have all contributed to shrinking cereal production. In 1980 Lesotho produced grain enough to meet 80 percent of its requirement; by 2004 it could barely cover 30 percent of its needs, and output has been steadily dropping, according to the UN World Food Programme. The UNDP report noted that adapting to climate change, which will affect food production, was urgently required to ensure all the MDGs are met, but this would take more money. The extra costs will arise from rapid interventions, like beefing up social protection and improving the capacity of any particular programme aimed at achieving the UN goals to adapt to capricious weather patterns. The report cited studies that tried putting a cost on making the MDGs "climate resilient" globally. "Estimates set the cost of 'climate resilient' MDGs to be about a third higher than the conventional cost of meeting the MDGs - around US$100 billion a year for the next decade." The report also looked at how and to what extent the 2006-08 food price crisis, the global recession, and rapid urbanization had affected the ability of countries to achieve the MDGs. There is more bad news for Lesotho. In 2009 the global recession took out more than a million jobs in neighbouring South Africa, especially in the mining sector, a traditional source of work and income. Unemployment in Lesotho shot up from a high 23 percent in 2008 to 29.4 percent in 2009. The report noted that "Progress towards the MDGs is expected to improve, as growth is recovering in many countries, but achievement of the MDG goals will be delayed." Read the report at: http://content.undp.org/go/cms-service/stream/asset/?asset_id=2620072