Dr Akemi Yonemura
Programme Specialist
Akemi Yonemura is Programme Specialist (Education) for UNESCO since 2002, worked at both the headquarters in Paris and field offices in New Delhi, Addis Ababa and Dakar. In these offices, she managed all levels of education and various topics, such as skills development, multilingualism, quality assurance of higher education, migration and education, teacher education, etc.
Currently at the Dakar Regional Office, she is responsible for Global Citizenship Education (GCED) and Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) programmes for the West Africa and Sahel region. Recent priorities of these programmes include prevention of violent extremism through education (PVE-E), prison education, genocide education, and climate change. In the area of Education in Emergencies (EiE), she recently managed two projects to: improve teacher qualification for Guinea-Bissau; and build resilience in Mali
through technical and vocational education and training (TVET), education for peace and disaster risk reduction (DRR). At the regional level, she managed the preparation of 2030 agenda, including the organization of the sub-Saharan Africa Ministerial Conference and the Regional Consultation for West and Central Africa, and ensured the inclusion of the theme of EiE. She also co-organized Research Symposium on teacher mobility, recruitment and migration, with the Commonwealth Secretariat, in close collaboration with the African Union and IOM to review the situations of teachers in difficult circumstances in Africa, including the role and status of refugee teachers and the issues surrounding forced migration of teachers at the UNESCO International Institute for Capacity Building in Africa (IICBA).
At the UNESCO headquarters, she managed a project, “Migration and Education: Quality Assurance and Mutual Recognition of Qualifications,” which aimed to facilitate a better recognition of migrants’ higher education, including refugees, in host countries.
Her research interest includes education finance and planning, aid effectiveness, migration, and peace and human rights education. She holds a doctorate in education (Ed.D.) from Teachers College, Columbia University