King Letsie III recently launched the Lesotho Nation Brand, which has identified four main pillars which form the foundation of the national vision for a prosperous and thriving Lesotho. The pillars are investment, trade, tourism, development of local products, and patriotism.
theReporter’s Neo Kolane sat down with The Nation Brand Manager, Tṥepang Hatase, who gave more insights on how Lesotho Nation Brand came into existence and what it seeks to achieve.
LNDC recently launched The Nation Brand. What is it and how did it come about?
Nation Brand is a government initiative seeking to improve Lesotho’s perception and its image. We want Lesotho’s image to be looked at positively globally. We want a country where people can live in and trade freely and confidently.
The government has come up with different initiatives and development plans like Vision 2020, and National Strategic Development Plan I and II. However, at the end of these programmes, it was discovered that the set objectives were not met. Many reasons were found on why targets were not met.
One of the reasons was the non-existence of a nation brand to coordinate activities related to government’s vision and plans.
The government then decided to establish the nation brand, which was launched by the King recently.
What is the significance of the Nation Brand?
The Nation Brand is crucial in that it will enable Lesotho to attract tourism, investors, and trade. It will also allow our products to be sold locally and internationally.
But above all, the Nation Brand will give us a distinct national identity and able us to enjoy our comparative advantage.
May you kindly unpack the brand’s logo. What does it offer?
The logo has a very long story.
When we started to build the Nation Brand, we started by conducting a perception study of Lesotho, wanting to know how Basotho view the country, people who stay in Lesotho who are not Basotho, and the Lesotho diaspora as well as those people who have interest in Lesotho.
Our study had different angles. We questioned people what comes to their minds when they think of Lesotho. The second question was what sets Lesotho apart from other countries.
From these questions, there were plenty of answers.
With the first question, people’s answers were Maletsunyane Waterfall, mountains, blankets, horses, spiral aloe, and Mokorotlo. Most people mentioned Mokorotlo.
With the second question, there were also many answers. Respondents mentioned that Lesotho has a high literacy rate, rivers, mountains, pure diamonds, and altitude. The majority chose the latter – altitude.
Truthfully, our lowest point in Lesotho is the highest in the world, so it means our entire country lies above all the other countries.
We then took those two aspects – combined elevation and Mokorotlo. The Nation Brand’s logo depicts Mokorotlo from the top.
What specific aspects of Lesotho’s culture/history are highlighted as part of the Nation Brand?
Each country sets its goals with its brand for a specific time. Ours is called the Lesotho Nation Brand.
There are five pillars, but we have four pillars we want to achieve and the other one helps these others.
We aim to attract investment, enhance trade with other countries, attract tourists, and promote local goods and service so that they can be exported.
The fifth pillar is patriotism, which is the most important because when one does not love themselves it’s hard to sell themselves.
We realised patriotism is going to help a lot and achieved through cultural and heritage. We use these two aspects to define who we are.
What does the Nation Brand initiative seek to achieve and how will this success be measured?
From the onset, we did a perception study. Now we know what the world thinks of us as a nation based on this study, which also acts as a baseline study.
We are now living in a digital world, dominated by social media presence, and through this we have seen and read what people say about Lesotho. We used this in our analysis on what people are saying about our nation.
We also depended on data from sources such as the World Bank reports which show ease of doing business. Such information teaches us on what to improve on, in that aspect.
The trade, investment and tourism pillars will also work as measurements of the brand’s success. We’ll use a baseline study to gauge the initiative’s progress.
What impact is the brand expected to have on the country’s economy?
When a country has investment, it means additional businesses will be set up, resulting in more revenue from taxes and more jobs.
Investment also brings skills development leading to an improvement people’s living standards.
We also anticipate that improving our image globally will lead to more direct investment and boost our tourism sector.
Is the LNDC working in collaboration with the civil society, the private sector, and non- governmental organisations to promote the Nation Brand? If so, what are the benefits of this?
We have a department within the LNDC which deals with the Nation Brand only; it has two external support structures. The first is an expert group working on promoting Lesotho and its culture. The team’s main responsibility is to advise the unit implementing the brand on technical issues.
There is also a steering unit called the Nation Brand Advisory Committee. This is made up of chief executive officers from the private sector, the president of the Lesotho Council of NGOs, and development partners. They all play an oversight role in the implementation of this project.
How is this project expected to drive tourism and investment into Lesotho, as well as address other challenges such as inequality and poverty?
Our ultimate goal is to grow the economy. When it grows, the people’s standards of living of people improve, which means we are working to minimise poverty, if not eradicate it altogether.
The Nation Brand promotes good living through elements that make us united, and sharing the same values so that we achieve the goals I’ve mentioned earlier.
Take us through the Nation Brand’s tagline – Experience Elevation?
Altitude sets us apart from other countries, meaning everything found in Lesotho is different. We have fresh air and unpolluted environment.
There is also quality water, our diamonds are pure, we’ve delicious trout from our clean cold water.
Our products, services, and scenery are all from an elevated point. We’re proud to invite the world to come and experience elevation.
