Hard Work can Help Take Lesotho out of Food Crisis - PM

The last preparatory meeting in the formulation of the Vision 2020 document coincides with the most trying times, when the nation is faced with tough challenges including the worst drought in ages, the Prime Minister, Mr. Pakalitha Mosisili, has said. 

Opening the two day meeting, mandated with adding the final touches to the Vision 2020 document, Mr. Mosisili said however that the drought should act as a challenge for the drafters of the document to come up with concrete, workable ideas to fight poverty and hunger. 

The Prime Minister said Basotho should be disabused of the idea that that the country was not able to produce enough food for its inhabitants, that it did not have enough buying power to acquire its people’s requirements from the international markets. 

“ I have to disabuse those of my countrymen and cooperating partners who still believe this is true.  We have plenty of land to be able to feed our own people. We just need to decide that it is time to start working hard, and to do this we have to start by setting out the way forward in the Vision 2020 document.” 

“It is very embarrassing for a nation of two million people to expect to be fed by another with a population of billions. We have plenty of God-given land and water, some of which we are even selling to our neighbours,” he said. 

One of the most encouraging things embodied in the document, Mr. Mosisili said, was the fact that it has not ignored the high rate of HIV/AIDS prevalence in the country, where about 70 people are reported to be dying every day. People should be encouraged to test so that they know their status, he said. 

The document was like a road map which was useless if its pointers were ignored: “You need to get on to the road and follow the road map for you to get anywhere.”

The Vision 2020 idea is the result of the call by King Letsie III in early 2001 for the nation to round table around developments they envisioned for their country in the next 20 years. A steering committee of 30 people was chosen to coordinate the work and, after collecting views from 200 randomly chosen villages, collated and and wrote the draft document being reviewed.

09 June 2004