Attachments
In Numbers
US$ 12.5 m six months (June 2023-November 2023) net funding requirements, representing 67% of total requirements.
50,000 learners received nutritious school meals in April.
1,422 households received cash transfers.
Operational Updates
Activity 1: Crisis response
- WFP’s food assistance support is on hold and will resume in October 2023 when the lean season starts. Under this activity, WFP targets women, men, girls and boys affected by shocks to save lives and reduce the impact of shocks by protecting livelihoods through the delivery of food and cash-based assistance to people identified as severely food insecure. The activities are implemented only when the scale of the crisis exceeds the capacity of the Government to respond. WFP will launch the lean season support (October 2023-March 2024) based on results of the Lesotho Vulnerability Assessment Committee report which will be available in July 2023.
Activity 2: School Feeding
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WFP provided school meals to 50,000 pre-primary school learners in 2,400 schools across the ten districts of the country, ensuring that learners receive an adequate and nutritious meal every school day in order to increase attendance.
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WFP trained 28 officials from Ministry of Education and Training, Ministry of Agriculture, Food Security and Nutrition, Food and Nutrition Coordination Office, Food Management Unit, and Catholic Relief Services on the use of School Menu Planner (SMP) PLUS to design school menus taking into consideration local food availability, nutritional requirements, seasonality, student’s preferences, and local sourcing. SMP PLUS is a WFP online global school menu creation platform that allows the creation of more affordable, nutritious and local meals.
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WFP continues to scale up the home-grown school feeding programme to improve the nutrition of schoolchildren and boost local economies by linking smallholder farmers to the school feeding programme.
Activity 3: Strengthening technical capacity of the Government on early warning systems
- The Government of Lesotho, in partnership with WFP, launched an innovative geospatial platform for territorial planning. This initiative, which is valued at US$ 1.1 million, aims to boost decision-making and enhance overall governance. The platform will enhance the Government’s capacity in facilitating relevant interventions, monitoring programme implementation, and evaluating outcomes. As part of the initiative, WFP has provided training to 56 geographic information system (GIS) experts and government officials from various line ministries to equip users with skills to operate the platform. WFP engaged Tech4All (a local company) to facilitate the platform's rollout across all ministries.