Lesotho is geographically surrounded by South Africa and economically integrated with it as well. The economy of Lesotho is based on agriculture, livestock, manufacturing, mining, and depends heavily on inflows of workers’ remittances and receipts from the Southern African Customs Union (SACU). and The majority of households subsist on farming. The formal sector employment consist of mainly the female workers in the apparel sector, the male migrant labor, primarily miners in South Africa for 3 to 9 months and employment in the Government of Lesotho (GOL) . The western lowlands form the main agricultural zone. Almost 50% of the population earn income through informal crop cultivation or animal husbandry with nearly two-thirds of the country's income coming from the agricultural sector.

Water and diamonds are Lesotho's only significant natural resources. Water is being exploited through the 30-year, multi-billion dollar Lesotho Highlands Water Project (LHWP), which was initiated in 1986. The LHWP is designed to capture, store, and transfer water from the Orange River system and send it to South Africa's Free State and greater Johannesburg area, which features a large concentration of South African industry, population and agriculture. At the completion of the project, Lesotho should be almost completely self-sufficient in the production of electricity and also gain income from the sale of electricity to South Africa. The World Bank, African Development Bank, European Investment Bank, and many other bilateral donors are financing the project. Diamonds are produced in Leteng, Mothae, Liqhobong and Kao mines. The sector suffered a set back in 2008 as the result of the world recession but rebounded in 2010 and 2011. It is a major contributor to the exports of Lesotho.

Lesotho (ⁱ/lɨˈsuːtuː/ li-SOO-too), officially the Kingdom of Lesotho, is a landlocked country and enclave, completely surrounded by its only neighboring country, the Republic of South Africa. It is just over 30,000 km² (11,583 sq mi) in size with a population of approximately 2,067,000. Its capital and largest city is Maseru. Lesotho is a member of the Commonwealth of Nations. The name Lesotho translates roughly into the land of the people who speak Sesotho. About 40% of the population live below the international poverty line of US $1.25 a day.

The earliest known inhabitants of the area were Khoisan hunter-gatherers. They were largely replaced by Wasja-speaking tribes during Bantu migrations. The Sotho-Tswana people colonized the general region of South Africa between the 3rd and 11th centuries.

The present Lesotho (then called Basutoland) emerged as a single polity under king Moshoeshoe I in 1822. Moshoeshoe, a son of Mokhachane, a minor chief of the Bakoteli lineage, formed his own clan and became a chief around 1804. Between 1821 and 1823, he and his followers settled at the Butha-Buthe Mountain, joining with former adversaries in resistance against the Lifaqane associated with the reign of Shaka Zulu from 1818 to 1828.^{[citation needed]}

Gerald M. Butts (born 1971) is the President and CEO of the global conservation organization, WWF-Canada (World Wildlife Fund Canada). The official announcement of his appointment was made on June 25, 2008 and he became President and CEO on September 2, 2008.

Butts was also a former aide in the Government of Ontario. He was Policy Secretary and then Principal Secretary in the Office of the Premier of Ontario, Dalton McGuinty, in Ontario, Canada. He was a major architect of its platform in the 2003 Ontario provincial election.

Butts has published articles in the Boston Book Review, the Literary Review of Canada and Gravitas. He has also appeared on television on programs such as W5 and TSN's Off The Record.

He is married to lawyer Jodi (Heimpel) Butts and has two children, Aiden and Ava.

Butts grew up in Canada. He received a B.A. and M.A. in English literature from McGill University in Montreal, Quebec before entering the Ph.D. program at York University in Toronto, which he left to pursue his career in politics.

Makase Nyaphisi is a Basotho diplomat and is the current Ambassador of Lesotho to Russia, presenting his credentials to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on 5 February 2010.

Monyane Moleleki (born 5 January 1951) is a Lesotho politician who has served in the government of Lesotho as Minister of Natural Resources since 2007. A leading figure in the Lesotho Congress for Democracy (LCD), Moleleki has held various ministerial portfolios since the 1990s. He was Minister of Natural Resources from 1993 to 1994, Minister of Information from 1996 to 1998, Minister of Natural Resources from 1998 to 2004, and Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2004 to 2007.

Appointed to the government as Minister of National Resources in 1993, Moleleki he was briefly kidnapped along with three other ministers by soldiers on April 14, 1994; another minister, Deputy Prime Minister Selometsi Baholo, was killed in this incident. Police then went on strike in May 1994, and Moleleki resigned and left the country for Botswana, saying that he thought he was likely to be targeted for assassination next. In March 1995 he returned to Lesotho and was detained by members of the National Security Service on March 29. He was elected deputy secretary general of the governing Basutoland Congress Party at a party conference in March 1996. In December 1996 he became Minister of Information and Broadcasting following the death of the previous minister, Pakane Khala, in November, and in June 1998 he was again appointed Minister of Natural Resources.