SADC Executive Secretary Dr. Tomaz Augusto Salomão, and the German Ambassador to Botswana & SADC, H.E Mrs Annett Günther, signed, on April 10, 2013, four agreements formalising support from the Federal Republic of Germany to the SADC Region. The agreements, totaling €44.2 million, cover commitments made in 2010 and 2011 under SADC-Germany Cooperation on the agreed focal areas of cooperation which include:

• Transboundary water management;

• Transboundary management and protection of natural resources;

• and Regional economic cooperation.

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.

JOHANNESBURG, 25 March 2013 (IRIN) - South Africa's gold mines are estimated to have the highest number of new tuberculosis (TB) cases in the world, making the disease a leading export to neighbouring countries. IRIN takes a look at the declaration meant to change this situation.

In August 2012, heads of state from the Southern African Development Community (SADC) agreed to sign the SADC Declaration on TB in the Mining Sector, following endorsements by their national ministers for health, labour and justice.

This year, World Water Day (March 22) highlights the importance of international efforts to preserve and protect the world’s shared water resources.

The United Nations has declared 2013 the International Year of Water Cooperation. According to UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon: ‘Water is central to the well-being of people and the planet, we must work together to protect and carefully manage this fragile, finite resource.’

Over 6 million people across the southern African countries of Angola, Zimbabwe, Lesotho and Malawi are facing severe food shortages, and are at serious risk from disease and malnutrition, IFRC is warning.

The Red Cross reports that more than 6 million people in the southern African countries of Angola, Zimbabwe, Lesotho and Malawi are facing severe food shortages.

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.

Empowering HIV-positive women

In 2002, Françoise from Goma, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, was admitted to the UN World Food Programme’s (WFP) HIV and AIDS programme. “Food assistance has been my only reliable source of food, especially when I was sick and hospitalized,” recalls Françoise, who lost her husband to AIDS.

In addition to food, HIV-positive people can also receive training and non-food assistance from WFP’s partner organizations to allow them to learn valuable life skills, such as how to start a business, to help them become self-sufficient.