Mid-term evaluation of project ‘Enhancing Climate Change Resilience in the Benguela Current Fisheries System’

The project “Enhancing Climate Change Resilience in the Benguela Current Fisheries System”, seeks to build resilience and reduce the vulnerability to climate change of the marine fisheries and mariculture sectors within the Benguela Current Large Marine Ecosystem (BCLME), through introduction of adaptation strategies in order to ensure food and livelihood security in Angola, Namibia and South Africa.

The project is a unique and highly relevant initiative that has a potential to address the barriers to the sustainable management of the BCLME. However, it has struggled to achieve satisfactory progress and to put climate change adaptation actions into practice in highly vulnerable fisheries and communities. The project design lacked a theory of change showing how it will support transformation processes that are not in its sphere of control or influence but are important to reach its objective. The mid-term evaluation makes a number of recommendations, most prominently, to re-examine the project’s logic and design, while reflecting on its future.