Tomoko Nishimoto

Tomoko Nishimoto has served as the ILO’s assistant director-general and regional director for Asia and the Pacific since 2015. As such, she oversees the ILO’s operations in 34 ILO member states in Asia and the Pacific. A key part of her role is to stimulate and foster dialogue between social partners (governments, workers and employers) across Asia-Pacific, helping them to develop and implement coherent strategies that address intertwined issues of sustainable development.

Ms Nishimoto provides strategic and technical guidance supporting ILO’s work in a wide range of areas including climate resilience, decent work and sustainable development, disaster risk reduction, gender equality, good governance, human and labour rights, labour migration, poverty reduction, private-sector development, safety and health at work, and social protection.

Ms Nishimoto has more than 30 years of experience in the UN system. She has held senior management positions in the UN Development Programme, Unicef and the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), both in field offices and at agency headquarters. Prior to joining the ILO, she served as the director of the division for regional co-operation (2010–14) at the UNEP headquarters in Nairobi, providing the six regional offices with leadership, guidance and oversight and spearheading UNEP’s engagement with stakeholders, other UN agencies and major organisations.

Ms Nishimoto relishes the opportunities her assignments have given her to work with diverse functional groups, across a wide spectrum of programmes and operations. These have included programming, monitoring and evaluation, financial management, human resource management, and communications and advocacy.