Get Guardian on GoogleIn an effort to revive the economy, the government of Lesotho through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has identified a number of infrastructure development projects.
This was revealed by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mrs. Matsépo Ramakoae in a speech delivered during the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD) on Saturday.
Mrs. Ramakoae said the projects include the construction of roads, bridges, hydropower stations and rural electrification amongst others and this is proposed through Public-Private Partnership (PPP), saying they believe that through this approach, a number of jobs will be created to compensate those who lost their jobs due to COVID-19 and economic activity will be revised.
She noted that Lesotho like other countries of the world has suffered challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic where many families lost their loved ones and means of livelihood, adding that the economy has also suffered tremendous shocks as a result of successive lockdowns which had to be imposed in an effort to fight the spread of COVID-19.
She mentioned that as a result of COVID-19, the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is expected to decline by 6 percent in 2022, saying this is mainly because of the decline in the external demand of textile goods and mining products.
Besides the decline in GDP, the revenue collected from the Southern African Customs Union (SACU) is also expected to decline, she said, noting that this is significant as a result of a fall in trade within the region.
Again, she noted that Lesotho has experienced torrential rains which resulted in storms that have caused flooding in a number of places within the country.
She said the heavy rainfalls have led to extensive damage to infrastructure which includes roads, bridges and electricity supply lines and a number of villages have been cut off from essential services such as schools, health care faculties and many more. She added that another setback was the slowdown in the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine due to difficulty in a movement to remote areas but they are glad as the government that vaccination is still in process so it can reach out to all people.
In his address, the Minister of Foreign Affairs from Japan H.E. Mr. HAYASHI Yoshimasa said Japan is willing to extend its hand in the next three years to assist African countries to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and heavy rainfall.
He said human rights freedom and democracy, peace and prosperity in the Asian region will ensure more private investment in Africa through numerous companies that will be brought to implement and monitor such activities once they have resumed.
He also said they will put more focus on private sector capacity building to tackle issues of climate change being one other challenging factor that affects economic growth globally.
The Tokyo International Conference of African Development (TICAD) was launched in 1993 by the Government of Japan to promote Africa’s development, peace and security through the strengthening of relations in multilateral cooperation and partnership.
The launch of TICAD was catalytic for refocusing international attention on Africa’s development needs.
In the course of nearly 30 years, TICAD has evolved into a major global and open and multilateral forum for mobilizing and sustaining international support for Africa’s development under the principles of African ownership and international partnership.
Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Government of Lesotho.
