Maseru, Lesotho – The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria announced today that it is signing two grant agreements with the Ministry of Finance of Lesotho totaling US$17 million, to allow Lesotho to expand prevention and treatment of HIV and multidrug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB).

Lesotho has the third highest HIV prevalence in the world, at 24 percent, and the fourth highest estimated TB incidence. The TB-HIV co-infection rates are the fifth highest in the world and multidrug resistant TB is a growing challenge.

WASHINGTON, April 18, 2013 – The World Bank today signed an agreement with the Kingdom of Lesotho in Washington for the new Maternal and Newborn Health Performance-Based Financing Project.

The credit of US$12 million from the World Bank’s International Development Association (IDA), with a grant of US$4 million from the Health Results Innovation Trust Fund, supported by the UK and Norway, will be used to introduce innovative financing for health facilities in Leribe and Quthing districts in the first year, with expansion to other districts in subsequent years.

HASEPHAPO-TAUNYANE, 27 March 2013 (IRIN) - Tsotleho Befole, 24, travelled from the highlands of Lesotho to neighbouring South Africa twice in the past year, searching for work in the mines. Both times it proved fruitless.

"They said I needed a South African ID to get work. I only have a Basotho passport. [But] there is no work in Lesotho. Nothing," he told IRIN.

"The only work is down there," he clarified, pointing to a fish farm at the Katse Dam.

By John Sparrow in Lesotho

Ask Red Cross volunteer Malikhang Matsoakeletse what troubles Lesotho’s foothill villages and she will take you to her clients: the hungry and lonely elderly, the struggling mothers, the orphaned children, those with HIV, and the impoverished grandparents caring for their children’s children.

On the morning we met her, Malikhang’s rounds took us to the home of Mafilipi Nthaha, 56, who cares for her nine-year-old grandson, a bright boy who wants to be a footballer. Who knows, perhaps he will, but tonight he will probably go to bed hungry.

In a small mountain village in Lesotho in southern Africa, Rosa Maria Rametsi and her husband are raising their six grandchildren. Their two youngest grandchildren attend a CRS-supported Early Childhood Development Center where they learn to count, to recite the alphabet and to work together in groups. Rosa Maria is hopeful this education will give the children a good start towards a bright future.

The Government of the Republic of Botswana today donated various food items such as beans, sorghum, beef, milk to the Government of the Kingdom of Lesotho in response to an international flash appeal on the drought situation in that country. The donation was received by the Acting Minister of Foreign Affairs of Lesotho Hon. Tim Thahane, accompanied by the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office Hon. Mophato Monyake.

Appeals fail to raise enough cash for food insecure country hit by late rains, poor harvests and long-term agriculture problems.

Read the full report on the Guardian.

Mamatsuri Mathinyane is a 33 year old widow, and she is trying to find a way to feed her five children until the next harvest. She has tried everything to budget the money she has and to find a way to bring in more income, but she knows it may not be enough.

11/01/2012 16:33 GMT

MASERU, Lesotho, Nov 01, 2012 (AFP) - The Lesotho government fears it may not raise enough cash to avert a pending food crisis caused by two successive crop failures, the head of the country's disaster management authority said Thursday.

"We are far from reaching the amount required to bail the country out of the food crisis it's facing, we may not even get half of that money and we strongly appeal for more donors to assist us," said Mats'eliso Mojaki.