New report: Lesotho’s Demographic Dividend

A new report by the United Nations Population Fund and the Development Policy Research Unit titled “Lesotho’s Demographic Dividend in the Context of Health and Other Development Challenges”, has just been published. 

Authors Dr Morné Oosthuizen and Lisa Martin analyse the potential demographic dividend in Lesotho through the lens of National Transfer Accounts. These accounts measure resource flows across generations and allow us to study how different generations draw on different types of resources—labour income, transfers, and assets—to fund their consumption. The methodology also enables us to estimate and analyse the demographic dividend, to identify the period during which the dividend may be harnessed, and to explore the types of changes in the socioeconomic context that might boost or constrain the demographic dividend.

While Lesotho’s population is relatively young, it has already begun to age and will continue to do so for the rest of the century. In the process, Lesotho’s economy, societal priorities, and patterns of government spending will be impacted. At the same time, Lesotho is faced with challenges related to slow economic growth rates, high unemployment, and poverty, and has been particularly hard hit by HIV and AIDS, which together with the more recent effects of COVID-19, serves to erode the country’s human capital base.

These various challenges highlight the value of suitably harnessed demographic dividend in achieving improved socioeconomic outcomes in the country but may also act to constrain the attainment of the dividend.

Downloads:

This work was commissioned by the United Nations Population Fund’s Lesotho Country Office and the East and Southern Africa Regional Office (ESARO), in collaboration with the Government of Lesotho.