Tajima Makoto played a vital role during the first boom of NGO establishment in Japan in the early 80s and built the foundation for one of the major Japanese NGOs, Japan International Volunteer Center (JVC). He worked overseas for 15 years with NGOs and as an expert/ advisor for Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) in Thailand, Myanmar and Malaysia. He was also the Chief Coordinator of Task Force for Disaster Response, Japan NGO Center for International Cooperation (JANIC) during the Great East Japan Earthquake. His academic background is in natural resources management (BS, University of Michigan) and agroforestry (MSc, University of Hawaii).
