The international Advisory Board of ZEF was inaugurated in November 1999. On the strength of its members' professional competence and reputation, the board is to actively follow the activities of ZEF as well as advise and support the Center in its strategy. Members of the Board represent the German state and federal ministries, private companies, as well as the international science and NGO community.

Current members of the international advisory board are:

• Professor Finn Tarp (Chairman of the Board)
  Professor of Development Economics, Department of Economics, University of Copenhagen, Denmark

• Professor Shenggen Fan
  Professor and Chair, College of Economics and Management, China Agricultural University, Beijing, China
  CGIAR System Board Member

• Dr. Christiane Fricke
  Research Organizations, EU, International Cooperation at the Ministry of Culture and Science of North Rhine-Westphalia (MKW-NRW), Düsseldorf, Germany

• Professor Barbara Göbel
  Director, Ibero-American Institute (IAI), Berlin, Germany

• Professor Gioconda Herrera
  Professor of Sociology and Gender Studies, Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences (FLACSO), Ecuador

• Dr. Karsten Hess
  Division Global Change - Climate, Biodiversity Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), Bonn, Germany

• Professor Michael Hoch
  Rector of the University of Bonn, Germany

• Dr. Wanjiru Kamau-Rutenberg
  Executive Director Rise, Schmidt Futures, New York, USA

• Dr. Bärbel Kofler, MdB
  Parliamentary State Secretary, Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), and member of the Federal Parliament, Berlin, Germany

• Professor Dileep Mavalankar
  Director Indian Institute of Public Health Gandhinagar (IIPHG), India

• Hans Cosmas Ngoteya
  Conservationist, National Geography Explorer and Professional in Wildlife photography and filming, Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania

• Professor Carlos Nobre
  Distinguished Professor, Institute of Advanced Studies, University of São Paulo, Brazil

• Dr. Michael Rabbow
  Senior Advisor - E&P Focus Africa Consulting GmbH, Hamburg, Germany

• Maryam Rahmanian
  Independent expert on food systems, with a focus on innovation, biodiversity and agroecology, Tehran, Iran