Programme for the Agulhas and Somali Current Large Marine Ecosystems: Agulhas and Somali Current Large Marine Ecosystems Project (ASCLMEs)

The Objective of the Project is to work with two other "thematic" GEF international waters projects in the area as part of a "strategic approach" to fill gaps in understanding of transboundary living resources of the two LMEs and to build capacity of the participating countries to utilize this improved understanding for more effective management by use of an ecosystem approach. This information and capacity then would be utilized by governments as part of the frameworks being established by the three projects collectively. The project is innovative in that it is being designed to complement two existing projects in the same LMEs, each with a different GEF implementating agency covering a different aspect of the same system with linkages created between them. This is being tried in these 2 LMEs for the first time to test reducing transactions costs of IA interactions. This is also the first replication of the approach taken in the Benguela Current LME project on the other side of Africa. Bilateral funding was used to build country capacity in sampling and then understanding their transboundary resources before GEF was asked to assist. The capacity was built through joint cruises and sampling to understand how their transboundary living resources worked so that information could underpin management. This project replicates that approach but utilizes GEF resources along with a ship potentially provided by Norway to slowly build country understanding to fill essential gaps on the transboundary nature of living resources and in doing so build their capacity to bring this information for fisheries/living resources management purposes. This is a pre-SAP project and will contribute at project's end to a revised TDA/SAP for the LMEs as one outcome in conjunction with the other 2 projects.