In 1952, Jella Lepman organized a meeting in Munich, Germany, called "International Understanding through Children’s Books".
Many authors, publishers, teachers, and philosophers of the time attended the meeting and as a result a committee was appointed to create the International Board on Books for Young People.
The founding members included: Erich Kästner, Lisa Tetzner, Astrid Lindgren, Jo Tenfjord, Fritz Brunner, Bettina Hürlimann, and Richard Bamberger.
The membership of the national sections include authors, illustrators, publishers, editors, translators, journalists, critics, teachers, university professors and students, librarians, booksellers, social workers, and parents.
As a non-governmental organization with an official status in UNESCO and UNICEF, IBBY has a policy-making role as an advocate of children's books.
The Hans Christian Andersen Award is given biennially to an author and an illustrator whose complete works have made a lasting contribution to children's literature.
[1] Each year, an IBBY national section sponsors International Children's Book Day, held in the first week of April.
The IBBY-Yamada Fund supports projects for reading promotion, establishing libraries, teacher, librarian and parent training as well as workshops for writers, illustrators and editors of children's books.