YO KIMURA APPOINTED DIRECTOR OF UN CENTRE FOR REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Press Release
DEV/2208
YO KIMURA APPOINTED DIRECTOR OF UN CENTRE FOR REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT
19990528 NEW YORK, 28 May (DESA) -- Yo Kimura has been appointed Director of the United Nations Centre for Regional Development, the Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA), the executing agency for the project, announced today.Mr. Kimura has extensive professional expertise and an excellent academic background in regional and local development planning. For many years, he worked at the World Bank as Project Adviser in China and Mongolia Department, supervising the quality of World Bank lending operations for China and Mongolia. He also served as Chief of the Major Projects Division, Information, Technology and Facilities Department, managing design and construction of several World Bank field offices and a major reconstruction of the Bank's headquarters buildings in Washington, D.C.
Mr. Kimura also worked as Senior Loan Officer in the China Division, East Asia and Pacific Programs Department, processing World Bank loans for over 30 major projects in electric power, petroleum, transportation, agriculture and education sectors of China and participated in identification, appraisal, implementation and supervision of the projects.
Mr. Kimura's academic record includes work in law and civil engineering at the University of Tokyo, political science at Wesleyan University and environmental studies at Harvard University. He has also been visiting professor of developmental studies at Keio University, Shonan Fujisawa Campus.
The Centre for Regional Development seeks to enhance the capabilities of developing countries in development planning and management at the local and regional level. The Centre is a trust-fund project, which was started in 1971 under an agreement between the Government of Japan and the United Nations. The Centre is located in Nagoya, Japan, and has a branch office in Nairobi to meet the growing needs for training and research in African countries.
With the support of the DESA, the Centre also seeks to enhance the capabilities of developing countries in social development, including with issues of poverty eradication, employment generation and social integration, as well as to strengthen the technical and institutional capacity of developing countries in development planning and management policies and programmes at the local and regional level.
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