By Mzimkhulu Sithetho    24 September, 2026

MASERU 24/09/2026 – After acceding to the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), Lesotho demonstrated strong ownership and institutional mobilization of Basotho on the APRM. This was at the initial stages of this continental, home-grown governance-monitoring and implementation system.

However, the country’s initial agitation towards the APRM gradually declined until momentum got lost and the country completely dropped the ball on the APRM.

Lesotho acceded to the APRM in July 2004, becoming the 12th country to accede to the AU’s most ambitious home-grown governance initiative.

During those formative years, Lesotho showed positive signs that the Kingdom was prepared to be peer-reviewed. However, Lesotho later dropped the ball and was unable to sustain the momentum on the APRM.

The period 2004-2006 was the accession and institutional establishment period in Lesotho. The country kick-started its APRM implementation journey with a consultative workshop in October 2005. Thereafter, following intensive mobilization for multi-sector buy-in on the APRM, national APRM structures were established.

The country established an inclusive eight-person National Governing Council (NGC), which was civil society-led. The NGC was made of members drawn from the wide spectrum of sectors of society – NGOs, private sector, academia, the media, trade unions, women and youth organizations, faith-based organisations as well as senior citizens.

After the NGC was in place, a government-led secretariat was installed to provide the much-needed administrative support to the APRM.

Since the APRM has been domiciled in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Relations, its secretariat was made of personnel drawn from the Ministry.

The Secretariat was led by the Resident Ambassador, Masuhla Leteka, who served as Head of Secretariat and Focal Point for the Lesotho APRM, supported by a strong team from the Ministry.  

The NGC and Secretariat facilitated the establishment of a Technical Research Institute (TRI), composed of the Lesotho Institute of Public Administration and Management (LIPAM) and the Institute of Southern African Studies (ISAS), then, domiciled within the National University of Lesotho.

The 2007-2009 period was the institutional set-up of the APRM, followed by the self-assessment, which started in earnest, reaching all the 10 districts of the country. The assessment reached NSAs, trade unions, women leagues, youth groups, the elderly and the disabled.

The intensive grassroots assessment culminated in the Lesotho Country Self-Assessment Report (CSAR), which contained Basotho’s views on the evaluation of the nation.

When it was completed, it gave birth to the consultations by the Country Review Mission (CRM), made of foreign delegation, which constantly visited Lesotho as a participating member state under review.

The CRM, led by Professor Adebayo Adedeji, who was the Chairperson of the APR Panel, conducted wide-ranging consultations on Lesotho’s governance performance. Professor Adedeji and Dr Chris Stals, also a member of the APR Panel, led the evaluation of the Lesotho’s self-assessment report against AU’s and international governance standards.

Lesotho was peer-reviewed in the 11th APRM Forum of Heads of State and Government, held in Sierte Libya in June 2009. The culmination of this was the publication of the Country Review Report (CRR, 2010) of Lesotho.

When a country is peer-reviewed by the APR Forum, this happens at stage four of the APRM review process., where the country under review engages in direct dialogue for mutual learning with other participating African leaders.

Thereafter, at most, six months after the peer review, the final Country Review Report (CRR) is officially published and formally tabled in key national, regional and subregional bodies such as the Pan-African Parliament (PAP) and the AU’s Peace and Security Council.

Lesotho’s CRR (2010) spelled out recommendations for addressing the many challenges identified by the review exercise and also develops a plan within which the implementation of the actions towards addressing the shortfalls, the National Programme of Action (NPoA).

The NPoA provides a strategic roadmap for the proposed courses of action that the participating member-state presents to its citizens and the APRM Forum for fixing governance gaps and weaknesses that have been found during the assessment.

The NPoA is country-specific, coming directly from findings of the self-assessment and external review (undertaken by the Country Review Team and the APR Forum respectively) on the country’s state of governance.

The evaluation was undertaken on the then, four thematic areas of review – political and democratic governance, corporate governance, economic governance and management as well as socio-economic development.

A recent review of the APRM has since come up with two additional thematic areas of the APRM – the resilience of the state to shocks and disasters and e-governance.

Lesotho’s NPoA contains a total of 181 recommendations, which were intended to address the identified gaps and challenges. The government prioritized those initiatives on which it had decided to place a high premium during implementation of the ARPM recommendations. The total cost for implementation of the NPoA stood at USD194,545,000.

Lesotho developed its first and unfortunately final Implementation Progress Report, which was presented to the ARPM Forum in January 2011. Other Government efforts undertaken to drive the APRM process on top of establishing APRM structures as earlier indicated, include putting up an APRM Cabinet sub-committee.

Lesotho’s operational implementation of the APRM ground to a complete halt in 2012, when a new coalition government led by All Basotho Convention (ABC), alongside the Lesotho Congress for Democracy (LCD) and the Basotho National Party (BNP) came to power.

The regime that preceded the ABC-led Government had shown signals of feet-dragging on the APRM implementation. Suspicion was that the regime had feared that the APRM would lay bare, its governance weaknesses ahead of the 2012 elections, hence affecting its election campaign.

However, on the surface value, the complete halt of the APRM implementation was largely attributed to ack of political will from the government.

Thereafter, there followed a decade-long lull on the APRM in the Kingdom until it was resuscitated in July 2022.

Upon adoption of the NPoA in 2009, a list five perceived risks for the APRM implementation included failure to mobilize additional funding beyond available resources. It was felt that lack of funding would thwart APRM implementation.

 Also, delays in building requisite capacity in human resources in time for the implementation of the NPoA was placed as a perceived risk.

Furthermore, political instability, global financial and economic recession as well as lack of institutional capacity to drive change contemplated by the APRM, were placed high on the list of perceived risks potentially frustrating APRM implementation.

The other risk was that of absence of a culture of dialogue on key areas of governance that needed to be constantly assessed.

The APRM is innately a dialogue platform, and it thrives in societies that uphold inclusive participation of all citizens from their various formations.

Adoption of that culture of dialogue and genuine exchange of information, tolerance of dissent, construction of consensus as well as acceptance of diversity of thought is still far-fetched in Lesotho.

Absence of this grand culture of wide and inclusive civic engagement can be aptly attributed to many factors such as relative homogeneity of the Lesotho society.

The relative similarity in language, cultural traditions, beliefs and norms as well as having only religion, belonging to clans and the totems being the differentiating factors drives members of this society to erroneously expect relative similarity in thought.   

Seemingly, politics appears to be the only factor that breeds sharp differences in thought and creates a fertile ground for divisions among Basotho. Even if Basotho would agree on almost everything, they will only differ when a political nuance is given to that particular issue.

Traditionally, Christian denominational belonging tended to divide the nation, but that has since subsided, after various Christian beliefs buried the hatchet and collaborated on a number of fronts.

The cosmetic come-together of various Christian denominations has been given impetus by the ecumenical connection promoted by the Christian Council of Lesotho (CCL) and other insignificant faith-based umbrella associations.

In 2022, there was a glimmer of hope in the efforts for the resuscitation of the APRM in Lesotho, this after a decade-long lull. Though moving slowly, there are formidable efforts advanced for the revival of APRM structures.

However, a new approach to the APRM, shifting slightly away from the conventional comprehensive reviews to embracing the targeted reviews, focusing only on identified areas.

The latter approach has been broached for its ability to focus on thematic instrument designed for rapid response.

The recent one held in Lesotho was that on the Unconstitutional Change of Governments, whose report was released in 2023.

Lesotho was selected to one of the six pilot countries for an APRM targeted review, which focused on the root causes of unconstitutional changes of government (UCG).

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Relations is making bold, formidable, but slow moves towards consolidating the APRM by facilitating the establishment of a Secretariat, an NGC and other attendant APRM structures.

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