Five years ago the Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases (TDR) from the World Health Organization (WHO) launched the Parasite Genome Project. The aims were to obtain information on genome organization and gene discovery in five parasites, namely, Schistosoma, Filaria, Leishmania and Trypanosomas brucei and cruzi. Organization of research networks for each parasite under study, promotion of international collaboration and training of researchers in developing countries, were also main objectives of the programme. After five years, a large amount of information has been obtained, which is now available to researchers in the field.