A new Afrobarometer Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Scorecard shows Lesotho is one of the few African countries achieving gender equality in both technology use and financial control.
Afrobarometer is a non-partisan African survey research network that provides reliable data on citizens’ experiences and evaluations of democracy, governance, and quality of life. Eight rounds of surveys have been completed in up to 39 countries since 1999. Round 8 surveys (2019/2021) cover 34 countries.
The Afrobarometer SDG Scorecard, which provides citizens’ assessments of Lesotho’s progress over a recent five-year period on important aspects of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, also reveals that the country is making progress on climate action and increasing access to education and electricity.
However, poverty and hunger are worsening. Lesotho is also doing worse on reducing payment of bribes for public services. Trust in state institutions has declined, and perceived corruption among these institutions has increased.
The newly developed Afrobarometer SDG Scorecards highlight citizens’ experiences and evaluations of their country’s performance on democracy and governance, poverty, health, education, energy supply, water and sanitation, inequality, gender equity, and other priorities reflected in 12 of the 17 SDGs.
These citizen assessments can be compared to official UN tracking indicators. They present both summary assessments for each SDG – via blue, green, yellow, and red “stoplights” – as well as the data behind these assessments.
Afrobarometer released scorecards for Lesotho and six other Southern African countries as part of a series of regional webinars focusing on progress toward the SDGs in Africa.
Speaking at the webinar, Dominique Dryding, Afrobarometer project manager for Southern Africa, said the Afrobarometer SDG Scorecards provide an additional perspective – one that is usually missing from other sources – that can be compared and contrasted with other indicators and thus enrich the discussion, help identify gaps, and support action to move forward in each country.
“The Afrobarometer SDG scorecards can be used as a complement to existing SDG trackers, by providing the people’s assessment of progress towards achieving the SDGs,” she said.
All scorecards can be accessed on the Afrobarometer website’s SDG Scorecards page.
Afrobarometer’s national partners in all regions of Africa conduct face-to-face interviews in the language of the respondent’s choice. In the most recent survey in Lesotho, Advision Lesotho interviewed a nationally representative, random, stratified probability sample of 1,200 adult Basotho in February-March 2020.
