Shareable intelligence

Lesotho

4 objects, each built so its context cannot be cropped away. Every one states the scenario range rather than a single value, carries the confidence level and the date the evidence was last checked, and links back to the full page it came from.

Copy a card's link to share it. Screenshot one and the qualifications come with it, because they are inside the frame rather than under it.

Country outlook · Southern Africa

Lesotho

Three scenarios, two horizons. The range is the finding — a single number would imply knowledge nobody has.

Measure	Latest observed	2031	2036
Output per person	$1,089 2025	$918 – $1,323	$796 – $1,556
Electricity access	61% 2024	70% – 79%	75% – 87%
Internet use	52% 2024	61% – 71%	67% – 79%

Growth bands: -2.81% · 0.24% · 3.3% a year per person, from Lesotho's own 15-year record (2011–2025) — mean ± 0.85 standard deviations, clamped to its own 5th–95th percentile. Not an outside estimate of what this country might do.

Who this outlook leaves out

Educated young people whose qualifications do not convert into work
A state that must regulate technologies it has too few trained people to assess
Off-grid communities, whose wait lengthens if capital concentrates on urban and industrial load

2031 versus 2036 · Lesotho

Two horizons, asked the same question

By 2031

Household electricity access moves from 60.6% of the population (2024) to between 70% and 79% by 2031, depending on the scenario. Simple continuation gives 74% — a rise of 13.6 percentage points.
In people rather than percentages: about 650,165 would still be without it in 2031 under continuation — 280,985 fewer than in 2024, because the population grows as the share improves.
Internet use moves from 51.8% of the population (2024) to between 61% and 71% by 2031, depending on the scenario. Simple continuation gives 65% — a rise of 13.6 percentage points.
In people rather than percentages: about 871,927 would still be without it in 2031 under continuation — 267,276 fewer than in 2024, because the population grows as the share improves.
Output per person spans $918 to $1,323 by 2031. The $405 between them is a quarter to a half of today's $1,089.
That spread is the distance between scenarios, not a margin of error — and it is a national average, which does not identify whose income moved.
The population reaches about 2.5 million — roughly 156,696 more people than in 2025, about 1.6 million of them of working age.
This figure is the same in all three scenarios. Most of the people who will be alive in 2031 have already been born.

By 2036

Household electricity access moves from 60.6% of the population (2024) to between 75% and 87% by 2036, depending on the scenario. Simple continuation gives 81% — a rise of 20.4 percentage points.
In people rather than percentages: about 504,165 would still be without it in 2036 under continuation — 426,985 fewer than in 2024, because the population grows as the share improves.
Internet use moves from 51.8% of the population (2024) to between 67% and 79% by 2036, depending on the scenario. Simple continuation gives 73% — a rise of 20.8 percentage points.
In people rather than percentages: about 727,058 would still be without it in 2036 under continuation — 412,145 fewer than in 2024, because the population grows as the share improves.
Output per person spans $796 to $1,556 by 2036. The $760 between them is wider than half today's $1,089.
That spread is the distance between scenarios, not a margin of error — and it is a national average, which does not identify whose income moved.
The population reaches about 2.7 million — roughly 290,173 more people than in 2025, about 1.8 million of them of working age.
This figure is the same in all three scenarios. Most of the people who will be alive in 2036 have already been born.

What has to happen first

For the Acceleration band to describe the decade, growth per person has to hold near 3.3% a year. This country has reached that rate before — its best year in the window was 5.3% — but has not sustained it across the 15-year record the band is drawn from.

What the growth model cannot see · Lesotho

Education & workforce capability

Binding constraint — This, not the growth model, is the operative question.

Gross tertiary enrolment was 9.9% in 2018, with adult literacy at 90% (2024). A state cannot regulate, procure, audit or localise technologies it has too few people trained to understand. This constrains AI governance, energy planning and public administration simultaneously, and it takes a decade to change — which is exactly this platform's horizon.

Why the band cannot contain it

Human capital compounds on a decade lag. The tertiary enrolment rate today sets the ceiling on what the state can regulate and what firms can build in 2036, and no growth average encodes that.

What would invalidate the modelled band

A sustained collapse or expansion in enrolment, or large-scale emigration of trained professionals.

Assessed in words and deliberately not converted into a probability. This platform does not publish likelihoods it cannot derive from evidence.

AI evidence state · Lesotho

5 of 20 dimensions rest on a document or a measurement

3 dimensions have not been examined at all — which is a statement about this platform's research, not about Lesotho. There is no readiness score here: ranking countries by a weighted sum of twenty evidence states would manufacture a number nobody measured.

4 Measured A published measurement exists for this country and has been read.

1 Documented A policy, law, contract or programme document exists. No measurement of its effect has been found.

5 Inferred Assessed from adjacent indicators. Nothing AI-specific was found for this country; the reading is circumstantial.

7 Not evident Searched, and nothing was found. Informative — but the absence of a published record is not proof that nothing exists.

3 Unexamined This platform has not looked. This is a statement about the research, not about the country.

Full brief for Lesotho · Open in the atlas · Method · How to read the labels