India Steps Up Africa Outreach: MoS Margherita Holds High-Level Talks in Lesotho

In a significant diplomatic outreach, Pabitra Margherita, Minister of State for External Affairs and Textiles, paid an official visit to the Kingdom of Lesotho, where he met with the country’s top leadership to discuss avenues for deepening bilateral relations.

During his visit to Maseru, the Minister of State called on His Majesty King Letsie III of Lesotho and held discussions with the Prime Minister, Samuel Ntsokoane Matekane.

The engagements focused on enhancing India-Lesotho cooperation across a range of key sectors including trade, health, education, capacity building, and development partnership. Margherita reaffirmed India’s commitment to supporting Lesotho’s developmental goals through ongoing and future collaborations under the India-Africa framework.

According to official sources, the leaders exchanged views on regional and global issues of shared concern, and expressed mutual interest in working closely in multilateral forums. The talks were described as warm, constructive, and forward-looking.

India and Lesotho share a friendly and long-standing relationship, underpinned by development cooperation, capacity-building programmes under ITEC (Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation), and people-to-people exchanges.

The Minister’s visit is seen as part of India’s broader effort to enhance engagement with African nations, particularly in the context of South-South cooperation and India's expanding diplomatic footprint in the continent.

The visit concluded with both sides expressing a strong desire to further strengthen ties and explore new areas of collaboration to benefit the people of both nations.

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