US foreign policy towards Lesotho will not change: Envoy
Thématique :
Lesotho
APA-Maseru (Lesotho)
US foreign policy towards Lesotho will not change for the immediate future even though Washington has a new administration under President Barack Obama, Deputy US ambassador to Lesotho Elizabeth Power has said here.
Addressing a press conference on Wednesday called by media practitioners who attended a three-day workshop on the new media vs. the old media that ended in the capital Maseru, Power said that these US policies include the continued funding of programmes on the prevention of HIV/AIDS and the promotion of condom use to prevent new infections among the population.
“United States promotes condom use in Lesotho under its programme of the United States President’s Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). There is no change towards that policy in the new administration,” she said.
She added that as the US aid moves forward in the context of family planning, it will continue working jointly with the government of Lesotho to provide condoms to Lesotho in the prevention of HIV/AIDS efforts.
Answering a question of why the United States government continued to pump funds into Lesotho through the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA) even though the opposition parties here warned Washington of poor governance in Lesotho, she said that the US did not interfere in the internal matters of countries, and only financially supported democratically elected governments.
On the question of how America was planning to build its tarnished image worldwide, she replied: “We are proud of ourselves in values of democracy and we do not necessarily operate on popularity.”
The workshop was organised by the US embassy in Lesotho.
