The network is an independent voluntary association funded by FAO and administered by a seven-member Executive Committee. Other international organizations such as CTA (Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Co-operation,Wageningen, The Netherlands) and IDRC (International Development Research Centre, Ottawa, Canada) have also provided constant and valuable support to the INFPD, since its creation.

Members include researchers, policy makers, educators, staff of development agencies (NGO’s), aid donors and smallholder farmers.

At the 11th European Poultry Conference that was held in Bremen in September 2002, the World Poultry Scientific Association (WPSA) Executive Council approved the establishment of INFPD as a Working Group (WG) within WPSA.

As a consequence,

• INFPD has become a Global Working Group (GWG) of the WPSA while retaining its official name, acronym and logo.

• The coordinator of INFPD was designated chairperson of the GWG.

• INFPD is the first global working group within the WPSA.