Crisis Overview
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Lesotho’s food security has declined alarmingly for the second year in a row. The consecutive impact of drought and late rains in the cropping season 2011/12 adds on the increasingly vulnerable situation of rural Lesotho. Lowland areas that typically have higher production have also performed poorly this season. The combined production of cereals in Lesotho represents only some 32% of the average harvest of the last 10 years, a decade already highly impacted by climate change-induced shocks (UN SITREPs 2012).
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Preliminary Lesotho Vulnerability Assessment Committee (LVAC) results indicate that 725,000 people are food insecure (40% of the population) (LVAC 2012).
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The situation led the Prime Minister H.E. Thomas Thabane on August 9, 2012, to declare a food crisis situation and called on Development Partners to assist.
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In addition to the poor harvest in 2010/11, a reduction in remittances and other non-agriculture sources of income (due to reduced labour opportunities as a result of financial decline) have depleted the Basotho’s resilience. Food price and cost of living increases are intensifying the impact of the poor harvest.
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In the Lesotho context the following vulnerabilities also increase effects of a decline in food security:
o 39% of Basotho children < 5 were stunted in 2009.
o Approximately 8,600 children are acutely or severely malnourished and require therapeutic nutrition through ITP (inpatient care).
o The country has the world’s third highest prevalence of HIV positive with 23.5% of the population affected in 2009).