Pretoria — South Africa would work with Lesotho to ensure that the country was no longer regarded as one of the least developed in the world, Foreign Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said yesterday.

"This is going to be mutually beneficial and it is not a kind of charity from South Africa.

"It is something that we both need because there's no country that can be truly prosperous while next door, people go hungry," said Dlamini-Zuma before a meeting with her Lesotho counterpart Tom Thabane yesterday.

The two were meeting to map out a new relationship.

"This meeting is very important, happening at the beginning of a new century.

"It is going to map out what kind of a relationship we have," Dlamini-Zuma said.

She said when the African National Congress government took power in 1994, it continued the relationship the previous government had with Lesotho.

Dlamini-Zuma said she and Thabane would discuss preparations for a meeting in the near future between President Thabo Mbeki and Lesotho Prime Minister Pakalitha Mosisili.

Thabane said the meeting was to define how SA and Lesotho could work together.

Dlamini-Zuma said the relationship with Lesotho should now be defined on how both countries' economies could be developed.

"Lesotho is in the middle of SA and has to have a special partnership by virtue of geography, its people and history.

"SA cannot hope to be an island of prosperity, which we have not reached ourselves, while people around us are not developed," she said.

Thabane said Lesotho's relationship with SA was at its most cordial and said the Southern African Development Community's intervention during the political crisis in Lesotho in 1998 should not be regarded as an invasion of Lesotho by SA.

He said there were some items which needed to be discussed between the two countries, such as how Lesotho nationals could attain higher education qualifications in SA, and addressing cross-border crimes.