Hiromi Amano on Building a Career Across Borders and Creating Opportunities for Africa's Youth

SPOTLIGHT ON

Hiromi Amano | Youth Engagement Analyst, UNDP Representation Office in Tokyo

Hiromi Amano

Key Takeaways

• Global opportunities do not require a privileged starting point. With the right credentials, basic professional skills, and a clear sense of purpose, anyone can build a career that crosses borders.

• Young Africans are not on the periphery of the global development agenda. Through platforms like TICAD and initiatives like timbuktoo, Africa is being positioned as a partner of co-creation, not a recipient of support.

• International institutions are not looking for beneficiaries. They are looking for partners. The most effective way to signal this is to show up with something to offer.

At the Hesed World Youth Capacity-Building Webinar on March 10, 2026, Hiromi Amano brought a perspective that was both global and personal. Drawing on a career that has taken her from a small town in Japan to Jordan, Qatar, Sudan, Switzerland, and back to Tokyo, she illustrated what it takes to build a career in international development from the ground up, and what that journey teaches young Africans pursuing the same ambition. Here is what she shared.

From Yamanashi to UNDP: A Career Built Step by Step

Hiromi grew up in Yamanashi, a quiet town outside Tokyo, with a clear ambition: to see the world and help people. At the time, the path she envisioned ran through the United Nations or an international NGO. What she did not know then was how long and nonlinear that path would be.

She began by doing the research. She learned that for most UN roles, a master's degree is a standard requirement, and English proficiency is the baseline for international work. She completed her undergraduate studies in Japan, then pursued a master's degree in human rights at the University of Essex in the United Kingdom. From there, she did an internship in Belgium, working with the EU Parliament and a children's rights NGO. 

Each step was deliberate. She did not wait for opportunities to find her. She took specific actions to prepare herself and move toward her goal.

Her first major field experience came through the JICA Overseas Volunteer Programme, Japan's flagship people-to-people cooperation initiative, which places skilled young professionals across 99 countries. Hiromi was posted to Jordan, where she worked with the Madaba Girls Centre, supporting community programmes for young women. The experience gave her something no classroom could: direct exposure to how communities function, how governments operate, and how cultural context shapes everything. She learned Arabic, developed cross-cultural communication skills, and began to understand that competence in international work is more than what you know. It is how you show up in places different from where you grew up.

From Jordan, she moved to Qatar as an Advisor and Cultural Attaché at the Embassy of Japan. She then went to Sudan, joining UNDP and being sent to North Darfur to support a youth volunteering and peacebuilding project, one of the most challenging postings she had held. It was there, working directly with young people on livelihoods and community development, that she realized something important. She had studied human rights because she thought it was what the UN required. But working on the ground showed her that understanding business, enterprise, and economic participation was just as essential.

So she returned to studying. While continuing to work, she completed an Executive MBA in Sustainable Business at the Business School Lausanne in Switzerland. That willingness to adapt, to recognize what you do not yet know and go learn it, is a thread that runs through her entire career.

What UNDP Does and Why It Matters for African Youth

Today, Hiromi works at the UNDP Representation Office in Tokyo, where she leads youth engagement, social innovation activities, and the Youth Co:Lab programme in Japan. Understanding what UNDP does and how it operates, she explained, is itself a form of preparation for young people who want to access global opportunities.

UNDP is the United Nations' development agency, operating across 170 countries with over 23,000 staff. Its work is anchored in six signature solutions: poverty reduction, governance, resilience, environment, energy, and gender equality, all deeply connected to the Sustainable Development Goals. Through Youth Co:Lab, a programme focused on the Asia-Pacific region, UNDP has engaged over 300,000 young people across 28 countries, built the capacity of more than 28,000 young social entrepreneurs, and supported over 3,200 youth-led enterprises. Awardees receive mentoring, grants, and visibility.

For Africa specifically, Hiromi highlighted two important platforms. The first is TICAD, the Tokyo International Conference on African Development, which has been running since 1993 and is the only international summit dedicated exclusively to Africa's development. Co-hosted by Japan, UNDP, the World Bank, and the African Union Commission, TICAD has in recent years explicitly framed Africa as a partner in co-creation rather than a beneficiary. At TICAD 9, held in Yokohama in August 2025, the theme focused on co-creating innovative solutions with Africa, with youth and women empowerment as a key priority.

The second platform is the timbuktoo initiative, UNDP's pan-African startup support platform, which has established innovation hubs in Rwanda, Nigeria, and Malawi and is targeting one billion dollars in mobilized capital and 10 million jobs across the continent.

Hiromi stressed that these systems are actively seeking young Africans to engage with them. The real question is whether you know these opportunities exist and whether you are building the credibility, skills, and experience needed to participate. Preparation, she emphasized, is what allows you to move from being aware of opportunities to actually taking part in them.

The Skills That Get You Trusted

One of the most grounded parts of Hiromi's session was her emphasis on what she called basic professional skills, the foundation on which everything else is built. These are not skills you acquire in school. They are habits you develop through practice: responsibility, integrity, accountability, an open mind, and a willingness to take initiative.

She illustrated this with a simple example from her early days at UNDP in Sudan. She was new. She was young. She had limited experience. But she replied to emails promptly. She picked up calls when they came. She showed up ready to work. These habits, she said, earned her supervisor's trust and led directly to her being sent to Darfur to lead a youth project early in her career. It was an opportunity she would not have received without first demonstrating reliability in the small things.

The lesson in a nutshell: credentials open doors, but basic professional conduct determines whether you are trusted once you walk through them. If you cannot manage the small things, it is difficult for anyone to assume you can manage the larger ones.

She also spoke about T-shaped skills, a framework the UN uses to map out professional development. Having deep expertise in one area is valuable, but having broad knowledge across related fields makes someone truly effective in complex international environments. Someone who specialises in community development but also understands finance, communication, and policy can work across sectors and connect dots that specialists alone cannot. As the world becomes more complex, it increasingly rewards those who are both deep and broad.

In Conversation with Hiromi Amano

Q: What signals make international institutions take young professionals seriously?

A: Young people have more to offer than they often realise. The institutions I have worked with do not want beneficiaries. They want partners. So the most effective thing a young person can do is show up with something to contribute. Offer your perspective. Bring your capacity to the table. It does not matter that you are younger or less experienced. What matters is that you are engaged, that you have something to give, and that you are genuinely interested in the work. That is what moves the relationship from charity to partnership.

Q: What is your advice to a young person who is struggling to choose one path when everything looks like an opportunity?

A: My answer is always passion. Look for what genuinely drives you, not what looks impressive or what others say is the best career. Something may look glamorous, but if you do not actually care about it, you will not be able to sustain the work when it gets difficult.

I started studying human rights and ended up in business. I started in Jordan and ended up in Tokyo. The path was not linear. But every step was connected to something I genuinely wanted to do. Try many things. Find what you like. And then commit to it.