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Lesotho

Updated: July 2026

Key Insights
The resources applied by the Basotho government to gather, compile, and publish national accounts data are inadequate to ensure fully independent, high-frequency, and comprehensive macroeconomic statistics, though moderately stronger than some lower-income peers.

The national statistical agency, the Bureau of Statistics (BOS), operates under several operational, financial, and structural constraints:
  • Geographical and Infrastructure Constraints: Lesotho's rugged, mountainous terrain (Maloti) presents significant logistical hurdles for field data collection. Physical access to remote highland communities is difficult and expensive, frequently leading to localized survey gaps and delays.
  • Informal Sector and Agricultural Reliance: A substantial portion of the population relies on subsistence farming, informal livestock grazing, and unrecorded micro-enterprises. Capturing these non-monetised and informal economic flows requires frequent, labour-intensive household and agricultural surveys that state budgets struggle to fund regularly.
  • Deep Integration with South Africa: Lesotho's economy is closely tied to South Africa through the Southern African Customs Union (SACU) and the Common Monetary Area (CMA). Trade flows, SACU revenue share dependencies, and worker remittances introduce complex foreign-data dependencies and cross-border accounting challenges.
  • Fiscal Shortfalls and Administrative Capacity: The BOS faces persistent budgetary limitations, hindering its ability to maintain up-to-date business registers, adopt modern digital collection systems, and retain specialised technical statisticians against competition from regional private and international employers.
  • Dependence on Foreign Technical Assistance: Benchmark national accounts exercises-such as periodic GDP rebasings, living standards measurement surveys, and census operations-depend heavily on foreign financial and technical backing from international partners, including the World Bank and the United Nations.
QUICK LINKS
Economics:   
GDP DATA QUALITY   /   GDP SIZE   /   GDP GROWTH   /   WEALTH   /   INEQUALITY   /   DEBT
Demographics:   
DATA QUALITY    /    POPULATION PROFILE

E.S.G.:   
ENVIRONMENTAL    /    SOCIAL    /    GOVERNANCE

 
ECONOMICS
DEMOGRAPHICS
E.S.G.
E.S.G. sections:    ENVIRONMENTAL    /    SOCIAL    /    GOVERNANCE  

 
ENVIRONMENT

The World Economics Environment Index combines carbon and methane emissions, with data on air quality, access to safe water and average temperature. The variables are combined into an Index using equal weights.

Environmental Index
Index: 0 = Extremely poor, 100 = Good as it gets.
Ranked by Environmental Index
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Country Rank
Order		 Environment
Index
0-100		 Carbon
Emissions
Index, 0-100		 Methane
Emissions
Index, 0-100		 Air
Quality
Index, 0-100		 Water
Access
Index, 0-100		 Temperature
2024
Index, 0-100



Paraguay 83 73.1 99.9 97.5 88.3 61.9 17.8
Zambia 84 73.0 99.9 97.8 80.5 63.2 23.4
Cabo Verde 85 72.8 100.0 100.0 56.3 88.0 19.5
Gabon 86 72.2 100.0 99.4 64.5 84.4 12.9
Kenya 87 71.6 99.8 96.8 88.0 59.1 14.2
Uzbekistan 88 71.5 98.9 95.6 39.4 78.5 45.2
Mozambique 89 71.3 99.9 97.9 81.3 61.0 16.3
Trinidad and Tobago 90 71.3 99.7 99.5 48.5 98.8 10.3
Lesotho 91 71.1 100.0 99.9 79.3 23.5 52.6
Mongolia 92 71.0 99.6 98.5 38.9 35.3 82.9
Honduras 93 70.8 99.9 99.3 77.0 62.9 14.7
Dominican Republic 94 70.5 99.7 99.2 96.4 41.3 15.7
Lebanon 95 70.5 99.8 99.7 68.0 44.3 40.9
Suriname 96 70.3 100.0 99.9 88.6 52.9 10.2
Papua New Guinea 97 70.1 99.9 99.1 94.2 41.8 15.7
Burundi 98 69.9 100.0 99.9 61.6 59.7 28.1
Algeria 99 69.7 98.5 92.8 70.6 68.7 18.0
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Data Notes
Emissions Index numbers shown on a scale of 0-100.
0 = Bad, 100 = Good.

Environmental Index Methodology: Total Carbon, Total Methane, Air Quality, access to safe drinking water and temperature data for each country has been indexed on a scale of 0-100 by using the standard deviation from the mean for each country. The implied Indexes are averaged to calculate a total Environmental Index which focuses on each country's relative environmental impact.

Temperature Data Source: CCKP. World Bank Group, Climate Change Knowledge Portal and indexed. An index of 100 incdicates cool temperatures where 0 indicates a hot annual average temperature.

The displayed data are derived from 2024 Temperature, Carbon and Methane Data. Air Quality and Access to Safe Water is the latest data available.
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SOCIAL

The World Economics social Index uses United Nations HID and World Bank data to create indexes for life expectancy, median age, years of schooling, spend on education and the percentage of the population in work, to reflect social progress. The individual Indexes are combined into the overall Social Index using equal weights.

Social Factors Index
Index: 0 = Extremely poor, 100 = Good as it gets.
Ranked by Social Factors Index
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Country Rank
Order		 Social
Factors
Index		 Social
Factors
Rating (A-E)		 Life
Expectancy
Years		 Median
Age
Years		 Mean Years
Schooling
Years		 Spend on
Education
% of GDP		 Population
in Work
Population %




Congo, Rep. 132 39.0 E 66.2 18.6 6.2 4.4% 51.1%
Benin 133 38.7 E 61.1 18.0 4.3 3.0% 69.8%
Tanzania 134 38.1 E 67.4 17.5 6.4 3.3% 81.1%
Uganda 135 36.4 E 68.7 16.9 5.7 2.7% 65.6%
Ethiopia 136 36.0 E 67.9 19.1 3.2 4.5% 75.6%
Eswatini 137 35.3 E 64.4 22.5 5.6 5.0% 36.8%
Guinea-Bissau 138 34.2 E 64.4 19.4 3.6 2.7% 66.0%
Mali 139 33.4 E 60.9 15.7 2.3 4.4% 63.3%
Lesotho 140 33.3 E 58.2 21.8 6.0 8.7% 47.9%
Zambia 141 31.4 E 66.7 17.9 7.2 3.7% 63.9%
Liberia 142 31.1 E 62.5 18.8 5.1 2.7% 71.7%
Nigeria 143 31.1 E 54.8 18.1 7.2 0.5% 48.5%
Angola 144 30.6 E 65.0 16.6 5.4 2.4% 69.9%
Guinea 145 30.2 E 61.1 18.3 2.2 2.2% 58.2%
Burkina Faso 146 25.9 E 61.5 17.7 2.1 5.5% 61.8%
Niger 147 25.0 E 61.7 15.6 2.1 3.8% 72.4%
Congo, Dem. Rep 148 21.1 E 62.2 15.8 7.0 2.7% 61.6%

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Data Notes
Social Factors Index numbers shown on a scale of 0-100
0 = Poor social metrics, 100 = Excellent social metrics.

Data source: United Nations, 2025, Washington D.C.
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GOVERNANCE

The Governance Index combines data on Rule of Law, Press Freedom, Political Rights and Corruption Perceptions. Read more about the Governance Ratings methodology

Governance Index
Index: 0 = Extremely poor, 100 = Good as it gets.
Ranked by Governance Index
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Country
 Rank
Order		 Governance
Index
(0-100 Index)		 Governance
Rating
(A-E)		 Rule of
Law
(0-100 Index)		 Press
Freedom
(0-100 Index)		 Political
Rights
(0-100 Index)		 Corruption
Perceptions
(0-100 Index)




Brazil 64 53.0 C 40.2 66.6 76.2 28.9
Qatar 65 52.9 C 72.8 58.2 21.4 59.2
Mongolia 66 52.7 C 43.5 53.2 90.5 23.7
Malawi 67 51.9 C 44.2 59.7 76.2 27.6
Guyana 68 51.7 C 39.3 58.0 73.8 35.5
Argentina 69 51.2 C 37.5 48.9 88.1 30.3
Albania 70 50.9 C 44.0 54.1 71.4 34.2
Gambia 71 49.4 C 38.5 70.5 57.1 31.6
Lesotho 72 49.3 C 35.7 51.4 78.6 31.6
Colombia 73 48.6 C 36.3 47.9 78.6 31.6
India 74 47.3 C 53.3 23.0 78.6 34.2
Cote d'Ivoire 75 46.8 C 36.2 66.5 45.2 39.5
Georgia 76 46.4 C 53.0 34.1 50.0 48.7
Nepal 77 46.2 C 36.2 51.9 69.0 27.6
Liberia 78 45.9 C 21.2 64.3 78.6 19.7
United Arab Emirates 79 45.9 C 71.5 21.6 16.7 73.7
Sri Lanka 80 45.7 C 45.9 34.1 73.8 28.9

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Data Notes
Index numbers are all rebased and shown on a scale of 0-100.
Governance: 0 = Extremely poor governance, 100 = As good as it gets.
Corruption Perception: 0 = Bad, 100 = Good.
Rule of Law: 0 = low rule of law, 100 = High rule of law.
Press Freedom: 0 = Low press freedom, 100 = High press freedom.
Political Rights: 0 = Low political rights, 100 = High political rights.

Source: World Bank (Rule of Law), RSF (Press Freedom), Freedom House,Freedom in the World Report (Political Rights), Transparency International (Corruption Perceptions).

All source data has been re-indexed on a scale of 0-100 for comparison purposes.

The displayed data are derived from 2025 data sources.
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