Deputy Prime Minister Mothetjoa Metsing
Pascalinah Kabi
DEPUTY Prime Minister, Mothetjoa Metsing says government is worried by the country’s worsening maternal mortality situation despite spirited efforts to redress the situation.
Mr Metsing said the disturbing development came against the background of the country’s failure to achieve its target of decreasing child mortality rates by 2015 as stipulated in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
He made the remarks yesterday while officially launching the MDGs 2015 Report, where he also revealed that the country fared poorly in the areas of health and poverty-related MDGs.
The MDG 2015 report is the fifth and last report of the 15-year world specific and shared agenda for improving living conditions of all people. MDGs were replaced by the ambitious 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Mr Metsing said the perusal of the MDG 2015 report showed that poverty and inequality continue to be major challenges with 57.1 percent of Lesotho’s population living below the poverty line.
He said “while unemployment has decreased from 34.2 percent in 1997 to 28.7 percent in 2015, it continues to contribute to the high level of poverty”.
“Under five mortality rate and infant mortality rates declined from 113 to 85 per 1000 live births in 2005 to 85 and 59 per 1000 live births, respectively, in 2015, though we failed to achieve the target of 37 deaths per 1000 lives for under five mortality and 27 for infant mortality.
“Despite an 18 percent increase in skilled personnel attending births since 2001, the maternal mortality situation has worsened in Lesotho with an increase in maternal deaths from 370 per 10 000 births in 1990 to 1 024 in 2014,” he said.
He said it was unacceptable that more women continued to lose their lives during childbirth despite government’s M37 million investment in the health sector for the recruitment of health professionals.
He however, assured development partners and Basotho that government was not taking this lightly and they were going to work hard to ensure that there were road facilities leading to new clinics as most of the deaths occurred during home births.
Mr Metsing said they were also engaging village health workers in the fight against maternal mortalities, saying they were very critical in the holistic approach government had adopted.
The deputy prime minister said that the report also painted a gloomy picture that HIV and Aids prevalence rate among adults in Lesotho was still high at 25 percent, the second highest in the world despite various interventions undertaken to curb the spread of HIV.
“Lesotho faces many challenges in the area of environmental stability. The country has made substantial progress in the past decade in terms of improved sanitation and access to clean water for its citizens,” he said.
He said while the report indicated that Lesotho has had a mixed experience with respect to MDG implementation during the past 15 years, there were also success stories worth noting.
He said the country had made significant progress in the areas of education owing to the policy initiatives such as enactment of the Education Act of 2010 which made primary education not only free but compulsory.
He said the primary education enrolment was currently at 76 percent in Lesotho.
“Issues relating to dropout rates, completion rates and quality of education remain to be addressed. Government’s concern is to find out where those who couldn’t complete their studies are, what they are doing and what can be done to help them attain the requisite skills that will help them to improve their livelihoods,” he said.
Mr Metsing said the report further showed that Lesotho had achieved substantial progress in promoting gender equality and female participation in education and politics, citing that from the female representation in parliament had increased from 11.2 percent in 1993 to 25 percent in 2014; adding that the country had however failed to meet the Southern African Development Committee (SADC) target of 30 percent women representation.
He also said Lesotho achieved its target of immunisation against measles for one year children with an immunisation at 90 percent to prevent measles.
Mr Metsing said government was well aware that it needed to take urgent steps to improve on policy development and implementation, focusing on coordinated and integrated multi-sectoral approach to development.
He said other urgent steps needed to be taken to decentralise services, improve monitoring and evaluation systems for establishing baselines and tracking progress as well as improving sectoral capacity for implementation and ensuring that different sectors know the country’s development agenda.
“Lesotho has committed to address the unfinished business of the MDGS along with the implementation of the Agenda 2030 which will be integrated into the new National Strategic Plan,” Mr Metsing said.
He added: “We may be aware that the country is currently facing serious financial challenges compounded by the decline in Southern African Customs Union (SACU) revenues and increase in expenditures. In order to achieve SDGs, the country needs to embark on a rigorous resource mobilisation strategy both internally and externally.”
