Together, We Can Shape the Future: Advancing Children's Well-being through a New Japan-Bangladesh Partnership”

Yasuhide is a pediatrician and Professor Emeritus of Osaka University. After graduating from the University of Tokyo and working as a pediatrician at Tokyo Metropolitan Hospital, he began his career in global health as a Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) expert in Indonesia (1986–88), working to promote maternal and child health. He later promoted refugee health programs at the UNHCR Pakistan Office (1990–91). He has also served as a lecturer in pediatrics at the University of Tokyo, a Takemi Fellow in international health at the Harvard School of Public Health (1996–97), and a professor at the Graduate School of Human Sciences, Osaka University (2000–2017). He is currently President of Friends of WHO Japan.
Working in the spirit of a fieldworker and through an interdisciplinary approach, he has conducted research on Maternal and Child Health (MCH) Handbook programs in many countries, humanitarian relief for refugees and disaster victims, and the health care system in Japan.
In recognition of his contribution to spreading the MCH Handbook around the world, he received the 43rd Medical Achievement Award (Iryo Kourou Sho) in 2015 and the Daido Life Foundation Special Award for Regional Studies in 2024. In November 2021, he was selected by Newsweek Japan as one of "30 Japanese Who Contribute to the World." He is the author of numerous books, including Umi o Watatta Boshi Techo (Maternal and Child Health Handbooks Across the Sea; Junposha, 2021).

Mayumi specializes in South Asian area studies (Bangladesh and India), with a focus on gender, employment issues, and intra-regional relations. After graduating from Sophia University, she joined the Institute of Developing Economies (IDE-JETRO), where she worked as a researcher, and later served as Executive Director of the Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO), among other positions. She assumed her current role in 2025.
Her publications include Shirarezaru Kogyokoku Bangladesh (Bangladesh: The Unknown Industrial Nation; co-editor, Institute of Developing Economies, 2014).

Hiroki was born in 1980 in Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture. He devoted himself to baseball in high school and sailing in university. Unable to forget the street children he saw in Thailand during an international sailing competition, he resolved to work in Bangladesh, which was then known as the poorest country in Asia. In August 2003, he founded Ekmattra with local university students and began supporting street children.
In 2009, he completed and distributed the film Ari Jigoku no Yona Machi (A City Like an Antlion Pit), which has been screened more than 200 times in Japan and Bangladesh. In July 2018, he opened the Ekmattra-Dutch-Bangla Bank Academy (Ekmattra Academy), which nurtures "elites of the heart" from among street children, and is working to produce leaders active in a wide range of fields and to further expand the circle of Ekmattra’s activities. In 2010, he received the Grand Prize and the Prime Minister's Encouragement Award at the Ningenryoku Taisho (Human Power Awards), often described as the youth version of the People's Honor Award. He also serves as head coach of the Bangladesh national baseball team under the Bangladesh Baseball Federation.

Shohei holds a BA in Economics from Keio University (1989) and a Master of Science in Economics from the London School of Economics and Political Science (1992). He joined the Overseas Economic Cooperation Fund (OECF) in April 1989, and later served as Section Chief of the Multilateral Development Banks Division at the Ministry of Finance, Japan (1993) and as Representative of the OECF New Delhi Office (1996). At the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC), he held positions including Deputy Director of the Policy and Strategy Division, Director of the Coordination Division and 2nd Division (Central Asia and Caucasus), and Director of the Development Cooperation Strategy Department.
At the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), he has served as Director of the 1st Division (India and Bhutan) of the South Asia Department (2008), Director of the Coordination Division (2010), Chief Representative of the JICA Iraq Office (2013), Head of the Office for Global Issues and Development Partnership (2016), and Director General of the Information Systems Office (March 2018), the South Asia Department (June 2018), the Private Sector Partnership and Finance Department (2020), and the Operations Strategy Department (2022). He has been Senior Vice President of JICA since 23 May 2024. From October 2006 to March 2007, he also served as Visiting Professor at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies (GRIPS).

Naonori holds a PhD in Human Sciences from Osaka University. After serving as a lecturer and associate professor at the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, he joined Rikkyo University in April 2020. Specializing in international cooperation studies, development sociology, and South Asian area studies, he conducts field-based research in Bangladesh on poverty, child labor, cyclone disasters and climate change, and the Rohingya refugee crisis. He has also conducted research on child protection, including an impact assessment of a 15-year project supporting girl domestic workers in Bangladesh.
His publications include Kettei-ban Bangladesh no Koto ga Manga de 3-jikan de Wakaru Hon (The Definitive Guide to Bangladesh in Manga: Understand in Three Hours; supervising editor, Asuka Shuppan, 2026), Gendai Bangladesh: Economic Growth and a Society in Upheaval (co-editor, University of Tokyo Press, 2025), The Rohingya's Predicament from Bangladeshi / Japanese Perspectives: Between Acceptance and Friction (editor, Academic Press and Publishers Library, 2024), and Watashi 8-sai, Shokugyo, Kaji Shiyonin (I Am 8 Years Old, and My Job Is Domestic Worker; Godo Shuppan, 2018).

After graduating from the Faculty of Letters at Kyoto University, she joined the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), where she focused on educational development programs. Over the course of her career, she held several senior leadership positions, including Senior Vice President, Director General of the Human Development Department, Director of the JICA Research Institute, and Chief Representative of the Bangladesh Office. She pursued further studies at the UNESCO International Institute for Educational Planning and completed the DEA program at Paris V University, later earning a Ph.D. from the Graduate School of International Development at Nagoya University.
She has played a pivotal role in designing and implementing Japan's international education cooperation initiatives, while also contributing to academic research on educational development and the internationalization of higher education. Her work has been widely published in academic books and journals.
Since 2025, she has served as Executive Director of the Sasakawa Peace Foundation, where she leads strategic dialogue and exchange programs with Asia, supports peacebuilding efforts, and oversees Japan-China exchange initiatives.
She concurrently serves as Senior Research Advisor at the JICA Ogata Sadako Research Institute for Peace and Development, Director of the Honda Foundation, Director of the Japan Educational Exchanges and Services, Director of Care International Japan, and Councilor of the Broadcast Program International Exchange Center, among others.

Maho holds a BA in Liberal Arts from the University of Tokyo and an MA in Development and Social Anthropology from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. She began her career in 1996 at the Japan Foundation, where she planned and managed intellectual exchange, Japanese studies, and arts exchange programs mainly in Southeast and South Asia. She served as Assistant Director of the Japan Foundation Jakarta Cultural Center from 2001 to 2005, and as Assistant to the President from 2007 to 2008.
Since joining the Sasakawa Peace Foundation in 2008, she has been involved in launching its peacebuilding and conflict resolution programs in southern Thailand. After serving as Director of the Asia Peace and Stability Program and Director of the Asia Program, she became Director of the Peacebuilding Program in 2022.