13-14 October 2010 - Rinderpest has long posed a significant threat to rural livelihoods and food security. With the launching in 1994 of the Global Rinderpest Eradication Programme (GREP), FAO spearheaded an initiative to consolidate gains in rinderpest control and to move towards eradication of the disease. In close association with the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE), GREP was conceived as an international coordination mechanism to promote the global eradication of rinderpest and verification of freedom from rinderpest. It was a time-bound programme which is expected to lead to a declaration of global freedom from rinderpest by 2011. Eradication