In Numbers
USD 8.3 million net funding requirements for the next six months (July 2024 – December 2024), representing 89 percent of total requirements.
63,884 people assisted between January - June 2024
Operational Updates
Crisis Response
• Lesotho’s food security situation remains concerning. Assessment findings indicate that the number of food insecure individuals has increased by 20 percent from 581,000 in 2023/2024 to 699,000 people in 2024/2025 (403,000 people in rural areas and 296,049 people in urban areas). All ten districts of the country are projected to be in Integrated Food Security Phase Classification Phase 3 (IPC 3 - crisis) between October 2024 to March 2025 (lean season period), a period when most people are facing high food gaps with two districts in IPC 4 (emergency).
• To ensure that people are able to meet their basic food needs during the lean season period, WFP plans to assist 266,922 people in the rural areas of the most hard hit six districts (in which 25 to 40 percent of the population needs humanitarian assistance).
School Feeding
• Schools have been closed for winter holidays and provision of school meals to pre-primary learners across the country will resume when schools open on the last week of July.
• WFP is in the process of amending the Memorandum of Understanding with the Ministry of Education and Training to align with the new WFP 5-year Country Strategic Plan 2024-2029.
Early Warning and Disaster Preparedness
• As a key partner to Disaster Management Authority, WFP participated in the 4 days training conducted by the Africa Risk Capacity (ARC) and Africa Risk View (ARV) mission to Lesotho. The objective of the training was to enhance the government’s ability to plan, prepare for, and respond to extreme weather events and natural disasters through effective disaster risk management and financing solutions.
• WFP, through the Adaptation Fund project, engaged the Weather Information Solutions to train seven staff from the Lesotho Meteorological Services (LMS), on Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model to produce medium-range forecasts (10-12 days) and seasonal forecasts (1 to 3/6 months). During the training, the team also reinstalled the WRF model on the High-Performance Computing (HPC) system. The integration of these two models will ensure the generation of accurate, timely, and actionable climate information. Furthermore, it will support the climatology section in developing long-range forecasts, which are crucial for better planning of Lesotho's summer cropping season and winter cropping season.