SPATIAL CONTEXT FOR INTEGRATED DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY IN LESOTHO

The first section provides a general discussion of spatial development policy. The second section focuses on the role of some sectors of the economy in such development programs. The last section attempts to relate the earlier material to the specific situation in Lesotho and makes recommendations for further research in the analysis phase of the Lesotho Agricultural Sector Analysis Project. Lesotho"s Five Year Development Plan reflects each of the following goals either directly or by implication: increasing rural incomes, providing employment opportunities for the poor, increasing agricultural productivity, and improving living standards by extending services and facilities to the areas where the poor reside. The principal means of attaining the goals of the new strategy of dispersed development is through integrated spatial development which recognizes the role of major centers in generating growth, change, and modernization. It is necessary to define the spatial pattern of development and to integrate that pattern with the specific sectors of the economy. Industrial development is only one of the several important roles the growth foci have to play in varying development situations. Central places may also function as service centers providing specialized governmental, medical, educational, and other services. They should act as innovation-diffusing and growth-promoting centers and be able to provide employment opportunities for the surplus population of the rural areas. The aim is to build up the functions and level of services of the central place so that the regions become oriented towards them. Lesotho has identified three major project areas and thirty-six concentration areas in its agricultural development scheme.