IOM conducted a two-day diaspora engagement training for Lesotho government officials and partners from 27th to 28th May 2014 in Maseru, Lesotho. The training was opened by Lesotho Minister of Home Affairs Joang Molapo. 

This training was aimed at cultivating strong diaspora engagement and management knowledge for participants to ensure smooth implementation of a recently launched project: “Mobilizing Medical Diaspora Resources for Lesotho”.

The project aims to attract and mobilize health professionals in South Africa, the UK and the US to fill critical labour shortages in Lesotho’s health sector.

Lesotho, with a population of only 2.1 million, suffers from brain drain with Basotho professionals frequently seeking better job opportunities across the border in South Africa.
About 135,000 Basotho citizens or 14 per cent of Lesotho’s total population have migrated to South Africa, according to the ACP Observatory on Migration.

Professionals, including teachers, doctors, nurses and engineers continue to relocate and take up South African citizenship, and Lesotho’s health sector has been particularly badly affected.

The health personnel to population ratio in Lesotho, with 5 physicians and 62 nurses per 100,000 people, does not even come close to the minimum threshold level of a density of 2.5 health workers per 1,000 population that the UN Millennium Development Goals consider as adequate coverage.

Basotho doctors and nurses usually work in South Africa, the US or the UK, citing better pay and working conditions.

The two-day training will bring together officials from the National Consultative Committee (NCC) for Migration and Development, as well as high-level officials from the Ministries of Health, Home Affairs and Foreign Affairs, the private sector, relevant professional bodies, and local representatives of Basotho diaspora associations.

Participants discussed migration and development, developing roadmaps for effective and sustainable diaspora engagement, diaspora skills transfer mechanisms, diaspora tourism, diaspora remittances and essential elements of a diaspora policy.

“This training will help us to lay a solid foundation for an effective, long-term and sustainable national diaspora engagement programmes in Lesotho,” says Dr. Erick Ventura, IOM South Africa Chief of Mission.

IOM has carried out several diaspora mapping exercises worldwide. In the Southern African region, it assisted the Government of Mauritius in mapping their diaspora and in developing an overseas employment and diaspora mobilization strategy in 2007. IOM has also supported mapping exercises involving the Zambian and Zimbabwean diaspora in South Africa, the UK, the sub-Saharan region and Canada.