Former International Development Professional
Tokyo, Japan
Ikuko Takagi Matsumoto has spent three decades working in international development across Africa, Asia, and the Pacific. Originally from Japan and shaped by her formative years in Brazil, Ikuko began her career with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), first in Maputo, Mozambique, and later in Geneva, Switzerland. Her seven-year work with Mozambique gave her a firsthand view of the country’s historic transition from civil war to peace and from a centrally planned to a market-oriented economy.
Ikuko subsequently joined the Asian Development Bank (ADB) where she was based in the Philippines for more than 20 years. She led teams to support education reform programs in the Philippines and Indonesia, working with national and local governments and development partners to strengthen the delivery and quality of basic education in disadvantaged regions. In Uzbekistan, she led a team to support education reform initiatives during the country’s transition to a market economy. Ikuko later led social development divisions overseeing operations across Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands, and also served on several senior-level management task forces focused on strategic planning, resource mobilization, and organizational management.
These experiences eventually led Ikuko to return to graduate study and to examine more deeply the questions that had emerged from her years in externally led development work: who defines development, whose interests does it serve, and how do communities experience and respond to externally imposed changes? Her doctoral research has focused on the Marshall Islands, where she explored how communities have experienced and responded to loss, grief, and trauma associated with a century of colonial history. This work has brought her attention to the agency and resilience of Marshallese communities and to the ways indigenous culture, faith, and local and transnational church networks have enabled people to confront loss, sustain community, and carry their histories across generations and borders. Her research thus brings together her long-standing engagement with international development and her scholarly interests in grief, trauma, religion, and community resilience.
Ikuko has successfully defended her dissertation in Applied Religious Studies at Sophia University in Tokyo, with the degree expected to be conferred in March 2027. She holds an MA in International Development Education from Stanford University and a BA in Comparative Culture from Sophia University. She serves on the Board of Directors of the Lucky Dragon Peace Foundation in Tokyo and is a certified clinical fellow and facilitator in Sophia University’s grief care program.