The Benguela Current Large Marine Ecosystem (BCLME) runs from Angola, through Namibia and into South African waters. The BCLME is managed through a cooperative, multi-country approach in order to achieve sustainable, ecosystem-based management of critical goods and services.

In the BCLME region the United National Development Programme (UNDP) and the Global Environmental Facility (GEF) have been supporting countries in applying the LME approach since the mid-1990s. Implementing an LME approach to management draws heavily on risk-based management planning and incorporates the principles of sustainable development including the human and social elements of sustainability. The approach recognises that complete knowledge is never available and promotes processes that identify and assess all relevant issues through participatory processes. NFDS has worked with the BCLME countries and as a developement partner to the now Benguela Current Commission since the mid-1990s and we have assisted in developing strategy, policy, analysis, project design and evaluation and most recently in assisting to draft the State of the Marine Environment Report.