Internship at UNICEF Tokyo Office (Ryuto MINAMI)

From March 28 to July 22, 2022, I conducted my internship at the UNICEF Tokyo Office. UNICEF Tokyo Office is working　for a financial cooperation on ODA as a part of New York headquarters public partnership. During my internship, I was assigned to the Public Partnership Divisionand engaged explicitly in two activities. First, I reviewed and commented on project proposals and reports submitted to the Government of Japan (GoJ) by UNICEF Country Offices. Second, I analyzed trends in the Japanese government’s financial cooperation with UNICEF.

The first activity was to review and comment on project proposals and reports submitted by the UNICEF country offices to the GoJ for funding. Specifically, I checked project proposals and reports against each other to ensure that there were no differences in the content of the projects currently being implemented from the original project objectives, and that there were no errors in budget calculations. Through reviewing and commenting on the above reports, I learned a great deal about how UNICEF is facilitating projects in different countries around the world and what issues are being faced.

The second activity was to collect and analyze information on the Japanese government’s supplementary budget support to UNICEF in FY2021. In this work, I analyzed the characteristics of the Japanese government’s financial support to UNICEF by using data on supplementary budgets disclosed by the Japanese government and data maintained by UNICEF. Based on this analysis, I identified trends in which areas and regions tended to receive more funding from GoJ. In addition, by comparing the results of the analysis of the GoJ’s supplemental budget allocation trends before 2021, I was able to learn how COVID-19 affected the GoJ’s budget allocation to UNICEF.

Through this internship, I was able to learn what UNICEF is doing to protect the rights of children around the world and what is needed in the future to deliver assistance to children, especially those in the most disadvantaged situations. I also learned through this internship that the UNICEF Tokyo Office serves as an important bridge between UNICEF country offices and GoJ. I was also able to receive valuable career advice from the Public Partnership Division team and other team members who are working in UNICEF Tokyo office.

I want to express my sincere gratitude to Mr. Nemoto, for accepting me as an intern at UNICEF Tokyo Office, and to the team and other team members for their tremendous support. I would also like to convey my appreciation to Professor Keiichi Ogawa for his continuous and kind support during my internship.

Authored by Ryuto Minami (Doctor student)