“Welcome to the Mountain Kingdom” An Update on LEI Travel to Lesotho

Why did three members of the LEI team travel to Lesotho in the last three months? Because we kicked off with our national and internationally staffed team, a five-year contract by the US-funded Millennium Challenge Corporation to support the modernisation of the Rural Land Registration System in Lesotho, with a particular emphasis on supporting the accessibility and inclusiveness of that system for women! Our contract is called the Land and Gender (L&G) consultancy.

The L&G consultancy falls under the Market Driven Irrigation Horticulture (MDIH) project. The MDIH project aims to increase rural incomes related to commercial horticulture, including for women, youth and the rural poor, and to establish a sustainable and inclusive model of irrigation, water and land resource management. Specifically, the MDIH project involves the construction of irrigation infrastructure and the attraction of commercial farmers to collaborate with local smallholder farmers to produce high-value crops and build strong value chains in four scheme areas.

What is LEI’s role?  The L&G Consultancy works at two levels to support the MDIH Project. First, it supports the institutional reforms and gender-related aspects of the MDIH project to ensure that strong legal and policy frameworks are in place to facilitate the growth of irrigation throughout the country in an equitable and sustainable way. Within this framework, the Consultancy will also provide inputs to the Rural Land Registration System at the national, regional and local levels so that rural land market participants, including land allottees of irrigable land under schemes, can obtain registered land leases in an efficient, fair and cost-effective manner, and that these processes are fully reflective of gender equity under the law, including new reforms supporting women’s access to and ownership of land. Second, the L&G Consultancy supports action within the scheme once the condition precedent has been met for that scheme (i.e. the identification of an anchor farmer). Specific actions include technical assistance and support to Community Councils in identifying landholders, confirm land rights, conduct land use planning, support landholders to decide how they want to use irrigated land parcels and issue registered leases for each irrigated parcel in the names of the landholders.

What did the LEI team do whilst in Lesotho in May and June? L&G began on 11 May 2024. The LEI HQ team went to Lesotho on three separate occasions to mobilize the 30-person L&G team, get the L&G office set up and begin discussions with the Lesotho based client, MCA-Lesotho II and the other six contractors that LEI will engage closely with for the duration of the project. In her late-June travel, Renée Chartres, the L&G Project Director, travelled to scheme areas with the Lesotho-based team to understand first-hand the level of interest among community members in the MDIH irrigation project and their questions. As could be predicted, most questions were around whether the project would create jobs, although some thorny questions on what type of evidence will be required to demonstrate land ownership were asked by participants.

How do we feel about this project? Very excited! Whilst L&G is a complicated project, with more than 30 deliverables and considerable cooperation required with other Project contractors and government stakeholders at different levels, we are very excited about supporting Lesotho to move forward with a gender-equitable and inclusive land system.

Stay tuned for further information on our progress over the next five years!

Main image: Photo at the District Administrator’s Office in Leribe.
Image above: Photo of the Maseru-based Team with Kate workshopping the 18 Tasks