While pastoralist voices have historically been excluded from policy processes, they are now increasingly contributing to global, regional, and national policy processes and creating a space for inclusive representation. The World Alliance for Mobile and Indigenous Peoples (WAMIP), the global pastoralist civil society network, was established in 2007 to fulfill this crucial gap in representation and to provide a formal platform for advocating pro-pastoralist policies. Since then members of WAMIP have represented pastoralist interest at various policy forums such as the Committee on World Food Security, Convention on Biological Diversity, Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change, etc.

This meeting on ‘Improving governance of the global pastoralist network’ will support pastoralist civil society as they seek to revitalize WAMIP and renew their commitment to work towards greater inclusion and rights for pastoralists. Organized by the International Centre for Reindeer Husbandry (ICR), and supported by FAO's Pastoralist Knowledge Hub, the meeting will take place on September 4-5, 2018, at the Maison des Associations Internationales in Brussels, Belgium, and see participation from 30 pastoralist representatives.

Many of the participants will stay on in Brussels to attend the FAO-OIE Global Conference on Peste des Petits Ruminants on September 6-7, 2018.