10th CELEP Annual General Meeting held in Brussels

On 16–18 October 2019, CELEP’s 10th annual general meeting (AGM) was held in Brussels. To celebrate this special anniversary, CELEP organised a (short) film festival on pastoralism on 15 October, the eve of the AGM, at Cinema Nova in Brussels. This films shown at this well-attended event can be found on the film-festival website.

The AGM started the next day, after a joint lunch, with presentations of CELEP European members and Eastern African partners on their pastoralism-related activities. Then the European Focal Point, Koen Van Troos, presented CELEP’s past activities. The day ended with a networking dinner in a typical Belgian restaurant. Day 2 of the AGM was all about policymaking in the EU. Koen introduced the EU’s take on pastoralism. Then CONCORD, the European NGO confederation for relief and development, gave further details on EU policymaking, particularly on the EU budget – the MFF (Multi-Annual Financial Framework) – and how to engage with EU delegations in Eastern Africa.

A lunchtime conference on “Matching markets to mobility in Eastern Africa” was held at the InfoPoint of the European Commission. After an introduction by Leonard Mizzi, Head of the Unit Rural Development, Food Security and Nutrition at DG DEVCO, three presentations were made by Ken Otieno (RECONCILE, Kenya), Saverio Kratli (independent researcher, UK) & Moges Bekele (Ethiopian Catholic Church) and Margareta Lelea (DITSL, Germany). This session was live-streamed; the recording can be found in the hyperlinks in the report. Back in their meeting room, the AGM participants worked on future actions of CELEP, and finalised the workplan on Day 3. This focused on identifying: events in which CELEP should be active, publications, EU lobbying/advocacy activities, projects and CELEP organisational development. The agreed plan is included into the CELEP AGM 2019 report. CELEP members and partners who could not attend the AGM are very welcome to join in working on the identified actions!

Posted on 26 November 2019 in CELEP Documents, News