Despite the seeming abundance of water in Madikhapha Olympia Posholi’s rural community of Maphakela, Lesotho, residents had struggled to access reliable and clean water for many years. Finance for a climate adaptation initiative from the UN Capital Development Fund, that included community consultations and training activities, has empowered this community to secure long-term solutions to their water problems - and is encouraging them to see what they can tackle next.

While Ms Posholi sees herself as one of the older members of her village, she’s not too old to be learning new approaches to locally led action on climate change and putting them to work for the good of herself, her family and her community.

“We’ve seen a lot of change since we became involved in this project,” said Ms Posholi, who is on the water committee in Khoelenya community council. “We used to write letters to the government asking for support – complaining about how we need to solve our water problems - and nothing really happened.”

“Now since we have the grant to the local government, whenever we have public gatherings and we state our needs at one of the planning sessions, we see that things are happening more quickly,” she said, adding that she’s using the same skills to mobilise action around another priority for the community – access to electricity.

Lesotho is a small southern African country that lies entirely within regional power-house South Africa. Known for its natural beauty, the green mountains of Lesotho are also a significant source of water, which gathers behind large dams to be piped to consumers in South Africa. The export of water that falls on Lesotho’s highlands generate significant revenue for the country each year. As one of the world’s 45 least developed countries, communities in Lesotho are some of the most under-invested in the world and many lack basic services such as water and electricity.

Climate change is serving to make an already difficult environment even more challenging, with fluctuating rainfall totals and unpredictable weather patterns eroding farmer’s livelihoods. Harvests have been poor in recent years, said Ms Posholi, remarking that they have had snow in their fields recently; not unusual for the highlands of Lesotho - except that the snow fell in summer.

UNCDF began implementation of its Local Climate Adaptive Living Facility, or LoCAL, in Lesotho in 2020 with the objective of building local level resilience to the impacts of climate change. Funds are channelled to local governments using a system of Performance Based Climate Resilience Grants that are transferred using national fiscal transfer systems for spending on projects that strengthen communities’ ability to adapt to climate change as they experience its impacts.

For Ms Posholi and the other members of the village water committee, the fact that communities are consulted to identify collective needs and select appropriate climate-related investments has been a game changer.

“We get feedback from the local council that our needs have been submitted to the district office – then in no time we see they are able to begin work on our suggestions,” said Ms Posholi, wrapped up against a blowing wind as she proudly shows off the new water pump the community can all access.

As of end 2023, a total of 10 Community Councils in Lesotho had begun financing adaptation projects using the UNCDF-LoCAL approach, including the finalisation of seven water supply delivery projects providing improved access to water for some 4,900 people with many projects including training and capacity building components.

Last year, the Ministry of Local Government and Chieftainship—in collaboration with GIZ Integrated Catchment Management (ICM) and UNCDF—undertook two training workshops for the districts’ teams in the six community councils (Menkhoaneng, Kubake, Makhoalipane, Seate, Tenesolo and Metsimaholo). A total of 97 participants attended, with over 50 percent female participants in each workshop. The objectives of the training were to introduce LoCAL and the ICM partnership, explain the LoCAL financing mechanism approach, improve awareness of the importance of addressing climate risk through appropriate planning and build the capacity of local government officials.

UNCDF also supported district teams in Mohale’s Hoek – which includes Mkhoelenya - in the organization of community sensitization sessions. These sessions aimed to provide guidance and awareness to local authorities and communities on the sustainable use of water resources, climate change and adaptation, LoCAL and overall investment sustainability matters. A total of 267 people participated, of whom 68 percent were female.

Lesotho is one of 38 countries worldwide that has engaged the LoCAL mechanism to drive finance to the local level for adaptation projects. To date, some 18 million people worldwide have benefitted from locally identified and locally led initiatives that build resilience to climate change.

“Life has changed a lot because of our involvement with this [UNCDF] LoCAL project,” said Ms Posholi. “We see and we have learned that we have to take care of the environment. We have learned that we have to take care of the range lands, we have to take care of the water sources, we have to be sure that whatever investment we have – we take care of it. Because when these fail, it is us that suffers.”

With funding from the AfDB and GIZ.

All Photos, Josephine Laursen © UNCDF 2024

Find out more about LoCAL here

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