The formal private sector in Lesotho concentrates on housing at the very top of the market leaving the majority unserved by formal housing supply. As in other countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, the great majority of housing in Lesotho is built by people themselves incrementally and sometimes in partnerships with small contractors.The Profile argues that policy interventions should focus on facilitating access to better services and self-construction to enable it to be more efficient without raising its cost.

Similarly, housing built with local materials and labour-intensive technologies has a great potential for building the economic growth looked for in Lesotho's Vision 2020.The Lesotho Housing Profile offers a comprehensive in-depth analysis of the country's urban housing sector. The Profile contributes to the creation of a policy framework that enables provision of adequate housing for all Basotho. It builds a comprehensive understanding of the functioning of the urban housing sector that can serve as an authoritative reference point for all actors involved in the direct provision or enablement of housing in Lesotho.

This report was commissioned by UN-Habitat to review the laws and land tenure of a selected number of southern African countries. It involved the appointment of country specialists who researched and produced country chapters for their respective countries namely, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia and Zambia.

A regional expert was appointed to produce a regional overview to serve as a source document for the country reports, as well as provide overall coordination of the project. The project was carried out over a period of roughly one year, which began in March 2004.