The International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) has announced that Kathmandu will host the Global Gathering of Pastoralist Women (GGPW) from May 26 to 29, 2026.
The landmark event will bring together livestock, herding, and ranching women leaders from 40 countries. It serves as a flagship program for 2026, which the United Nations has officially designated as both the International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists (IYRP) and the International Year of the Woman Farmer.
Amplifying Marginalized Voices
Despite managing extensive land and livestock systems, pastoralist women frequently face massive hurdles, including a lack of secure land rights, disproportionate climate impacts, and exclusion from key policy spaces.
The upcoming summit, also known as the “Mera +16” gathering, will focus heavily on revising the historic Mera Declaration—a political document first drafted by pastoralist women in India in 2010 to advocate for gender equality, livestock rights, and indigenous land security.
The Scope of the Crisis
According to ICIMOD and co-organizers from the IYRP Working Group on Pastoralism and Gender, the global stakes are incredibly high:
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Massive Land Coverage: Rangelands cover nearly half of the Earth’s land surface.
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Biodiversity Custodians: These vast ecosystems encompass roughly two-thirds of global biodiversity hotspots.
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Food Security: Pastoralists manage the world’s most widespread land-use system, contributing an estimated 16% of the global food supply.
A Roadmap for Global Policy
The main objective of the four-day gathering is to establish a permanent global network of women pastoralists and draft an updated, unified policy agenda.
Rather than concluding as an isolated event, organizers emphasized that representatives from the Kathmandu gathering will carry their finalized action plan directly to major United Nations summits later this year. This includes the UNCCD COP17 on Desertification in Mongolia this August, followed by the UNCBD COP17 on Biodiversity in October and UNFCCC COP31 on Climate Change in November.
By bringing together diverse indigenous and traditional herders from the high tropical Andes to the Hindu Kush Himalaya, Kathmandu is set to become the epicenter for shaping a more gender-responsive and climate-resilient future for the world’s rangelands.