The Lesotho UNDP Country Office and the Government of Lesotho will for the next five years (2015-2020) implement a GEF-financed project “Reducing vulnerability from climate change in Foothills, lower Lowlands and Senqu River”. The objective of the project is to mainstream climate risk considerations into the Land Rehabilitation Programme of Lesotho for improved ecosystem resilience and reduced vulnerability of livelihoods to climate shocks. The project will support the integration of climate change adaptation into national and sub-national land use planning and decision-making.

Climate change – including rising temperatures, and a greater frequency of droughts and extreme rain events – is negatively affecting local communities living in rural parts of Lesotho. The fragile mountain ecosystems of Lesotho provide a range of benefits that increase the resilience of such communities to climate change. These include regulating services such as storing and retaining water as well as mitigating floods. However, these ecosystems are characterized by widespread degradation because of unsustainable land management and exploitation of natural resources. The effects of this ecosystem degradation in Lesotho include loss of vegetative cover and extreme soil erosion. Such effects reduce the capacity of these ecosystems to protect vulnerable communities from the increasingly negative impacts of climate change that are threatening their livelihoods.