{"id":227495,"date":"2026-03-20T13:56:57","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T11:56:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/southern-africa\/lesotho\/lesotho-the-lesotho-highlands-water-project-is-40-years-old-and-going-strong-but-history-weighs-on-its-successes\/"},"modified":"2026-03-20T13:56:57","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T11:56:57","slug":"lesotho-the-lesotho-highlands-water-project-is-40-years-old-and-going-strong-but-history-weighs-on-its-successes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/southern-africa\/lesotho\/lesotho-the-lesotho-highlands-water-project-is-40-years-old-and-going-strong-but-history-weighs-on-its-successes\/","title":{"rendered":"Lesotho: The Lesotho Highlands Water Project Is 40 Years Old and Going Strong &#8211; but History Weighs On Its Successes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"story-body-text\" data-para-word-count=\"31\">Big projects bring big hopes and big dreams. They also bring big disappointment when they don&#8217;t deliver on all the promises. Even when the projects work as they are supposed to.<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text\" data-para-word-count=\"41\">The <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.lhda.org.ls\/\" rel=\"noopener\">Lesotho Highlands Water Project<\/a> fits this description perfectly, as I argue in my new book on its <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/exclusivebooks.co.za\/products\/9780798305457?_pos=2&amp;_psq=aerni-flessner&amp;_ss=e&amp;_v=1.0\" rel=\"noopener\">history<\/a>. Over the past <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/rcah.msu.edu\/about\/people\/faculty-staff\/aerni-flessner-john.html\" rel=\"noopener\">20 years I have conducted research<\/a> on the <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/undpress.nd.edu\/9780268103613\/dreams-for-lesotho\/\" rel=\"noopener\">history of the small, landlocked country of Lesotho<\/a> and <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/journals\/journal-of-african-history\/article\/development-politics-and-the-centralization-of-state-power-in-lesotho-196075\/200122F1C827F788A0E73143AC1F10FD\" rel=\"noopener\">its development<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text\" data-para-word-count=\"23\">Two massive dams &#8211; <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/eros.usgs.gov\/earthshots\/katse-dam\" rel=\"noopener\">Katse<\/a> and <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/eros.usgs.gov\/earthshots\/mohale-dam\" rel=\"noopener\">Mohale<\/a> &#8211; and storage reservoirs in Lesotho have been&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/allafrica.com\/stories\/202603200020.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read more on AllAfrica.com<\/a><br \/>\n<br \/>South Africa Today Africa \u2013 Southern Africa <a title=\"Lesotho\" href=\"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/category\/southern-africa\/lesotho\/\">Lesotho<\/a> News<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Big projects bring big hopes and big dreams. They also bring big disappointment when they don&#8217;t deliver on all the promises. Even when the projects work as they are supposed to. The Lesotho Highlands Water Project fits this description perfectly, as I argue in my new book on its history. Over the past 20 years [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":227496,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cdn.allafrica.com\/static\/images\/structure\/aa-logo-rgba-no-text-square.png","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1406],"tags":[258,256,11327,7099,4717,1407,257,6504,254,6948,10369,6722,14295,5114],"class_list":["post-227495","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-lesotho","tag-africa","tag-africa-news","tag-highlands","tag-history","tag-lesotho","tag-lesotho-news","tag-news","tag-project","tag-south-africa-today","tag-strong","tag-successes","tag-water","tag-weighs","tag-years"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cdn.allafrica.com\/static\/images\/structure\/aa-logo-rgba-no-text-square.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227495","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=227495"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227495\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/227496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=227495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=227495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=227495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}