By: Jan de Jonge, Joe Antonio, Tenguella Ly, James Ferns, Fara Ratalata, and Emmanuel Jalloh
At the core of the Poultry Multiplication Initiative (PMI) is a simple belief: when local businesses are equipped with the right support, they can sustainably transform livelihoods, markets, and food systems. The World Poultry Foundation’s (WPF) role is not to run poultry operations, but to stand beside partners as they build resilient, profitable, and farmer-centered supply chains. The WPF has learned that this success relies on investing in poultry people—those managing hatcheries, training farmers, designing marketing strategies, and ensuring financial sustainability. By bringing deep expertise across production, finance, communications, and field implementation, these leaders help guide, coach, and strengthen local capacity so partners can thrive long after direct support ends.
Jan de Jonge supports partners during construction of Parent Stock Houses.
At the core of WPF’s technical support is understanding the country’s context, its markets, infrastructure, and people. As Jan de Jonge, Vice President of Operations, explains, “We regularly adjust our strategy and targets to reflect evolving local market conditions…these adjustments can go in either direction depending on what the situation requires.” For him, the long-term vision is always rooted in partnership and adaptability: “We do not create separate value chains; instead, we embed the program within the existing ways of doing business. That’s what ensures companies continue long after our direct involvement ends.”
Once the roadmap is established, day-to-day success depends on strong production systems and technical capacity. Joe Antonio, PMI Technical Director, sees that firsthand in hatcheries and breeder operations across multiple countries. “Some of the most common challenges include biosecurity lapses, variable fertility and hatchability rates, and inconsistent chick quality,” he says. To address this, he has focused on contextual adaptation: maintaining core technical standards while adjusting processes to local realities. Continuous monitoring, hands-on support and coaching, and transparent communication have been key to overcoming barriers and ensuring alignment with program objectives.
Joe Antonio and Sierra Leone partner, Leecon, develop a local sustainable solution to rodent control.
This approach is already driving innovation. One partner developed a rodent control program using locally available resources, which has significantly strengthened biosecurity and reduced operational costs. And, together with another partner, WPF designed and fabricated specialized feeders for female breeders, also using local materials. These feeders have performed exceptionally well, ensuring accurate feed distribution, minimizing wastage, and promoting uniform growth among the hens.
But a healthy chick only creates impact if farmers want it, understand it, and trust the business behind it. That’s where strategic communication and marketing come in. Fara Ratalata, Business Development Manager, begins by listening. “I like to start by getting to know how partners really operate, who their farmers are, how they sell, and what challenges they’re facing.” Marketing, to her, isn’t about ads or slogans, it’s about relationships. “With good communication strategies, partners stay visible, credible, and connected to farmers. They build the trust that leads to long-term, win-win relationships.” And when that happens, she says, the results are powerful: “Hearing women say they can now afford education for their children, that is true ‘life-lift’ for generations to come.”
Fara Ratalata holds up the new Kômbô-branded feed bags with our partner in Madagascar.
That trust also depends on strong financial systems that enable partners to continue and grow without donor support. For James Ferns, Financial Controller, sustainability is the ultimate goal: “Financial sustainability is in many ways the ultimate measure of success because it means everyone values the dual-purpose bird and wants to keep investing in related products.” Even though his title is Financial Controller, his role is not to impose financial controls, but to help partners see their value. “We always aim to highlight the benefits these systems bring to the partner, not just how they meet our requirements.”One sign of progress that he’s proud of is that: “Partners can clearly see what they’ve used and what remains in their budgets. That clarity is transformational.”
Cross-learning is also a key driver of progress. WPF actively facilitates cross-country learning by sharing best practices, lessons learned, and operational insights from other PMI programs. In some cases, PMI managers visit peer countries to observe implementation firsthand, exchange ideas, and bring back approaches that can strengthen their own programs.
Fara Ratalata and Tenguella Ly visit farmers in The Gambia.
Across all these workstreams, in-country coordinators, help turn plans into reality. They are the bridge to ensure alignment, troubleshoot challenges, and keep the focus on farmers. “It is essential the program reaches those it has been designed for,” Tenguella Ly, In Country Coordinator for Senegal and The Gambia, shared. Recruitment criteria, coaching, and field oversight are all carried out with that purpose in mind. And the motivation is deeply human: “The most rewarding part is seeing what improvements the project has enabled in people’s livelihoods. Helping families earn a living with pride and dignity.”
Through every voice, one theme repeats, partnership. No single expertise is enough; progress happens when strategy, production, financial systems, communication, and local leadership work in sync. Or, in Jan’s words, “Each country has its own dynamics, but ultimately success depends on the people you work with.”
Across the PMI program, that collaborative model is strengthening poultry systems, expanding economic opportunity, and creating more sustainable futures. And it works because the people behind it, WPF teams, implementing partners, and farmers, are building it together.
The APMI Program is being implemented in The Gambia and Sierra Leone with generous funding from the Qatar Fund for Development (QFFD).
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