Emi Yoshinaga is a Senior Associate (Strategic Development) at UNU-ViE.
Previously, Emi Yoshinaga served as a Coordinator for the Water and Resource Management Programme, assuming overall management of the programme activities at UNU-IAS. She brings to UNU-IAS over fifteen years of experience in international relations and development.
Her aspiration to work for an international organisation dates back to her bachelor’s study in political science, and to her first work experience in Japan’s diplomatic mission to the United Nations in Vienna, Austria. There, she developed an interest in international welfare and became familiar with the work of international organisations. Since then, she has pursued her career through positions with the Japanese Embassy to Cambodia, the Asian Development Bank in Cambodia and Timor-Leste, and with the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), where she managed environmental and climate-change projects. Prior to joining UNU-IAS, Yoshinaga worked for six years with a Tokyo-based international development consulting firm, performing evaluation for numerous water, forestry, and urban environmental management projects for JICA.
Yoshinaga has a bachelor’s degree in law from Keio University in Tokyo, a certificate from Dresden University of Technology in Germany where she studied abroad on scholarship, and a master’s degree in international economics and development from Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS).