Lesotho Climate-Smart Agriculture Investment Plan : Opportunities for Transitioning to More Productive, Climate-Resilient, and Low Carbon Agriculture

Lesotho's agricultural system faces a growing number of climate-related vulnerabilities with droughts, floods, pests, and extreme temperatures occurring more frequently. In response, the Government of Lesotho is collaborating with the World Bank to integrate climate change into the country’s agriculture policy agenda through the Lesotho Climate-Smart Agriculture Investment Plan (CSAIP). 

The objective of this report is to fill knowledge gaps and identify investments to transform Lesotho’s agriculture to a productive, resilient, and low-emissions sector. The report identifies climate-smart agriculture (CSA) strategies to mitigate and adapt to climate vulnerability and evaluates the costs and benefits of investments to implement the strategies. CSA is an approach for transforming and reorienting agricultural systems to support food security under the new realities of climate change. CSA comprises three pillars: increasing productivity, enhancing resilience and adaptation, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the agriculture sector compared to past trends. A CSA strategy refers to a plan of actions to achieve CSA goals and targets for a country. Apart from climate change, Lesotho’s agriculture sector is confronted with several endogenous and exogenous risk factors that make the country heavily dependent on food imports to meet domestic consumption needs