NEWS

A group of APU students in Associate Professor SUDO’s College of Asia Pacific Studies seminar collaborated on a prize-winning essay for a contest commemorating the 50th anniversary of the International Development Journal. Given the tough screening and the large number of professionals who also submitted entries, the fact that a group of students won a prize is a rare feat indeed.

The APU team poses with its award certificate at the contest venue in Tokyo

In Professor Sudo’s seminar, students deal with environment and development-related topics while learning about theories pertaining to environmental resource economics and development policy. The ultimate aim of the class is to provide students with the ability to apply theories to policy-making and other practical scenarios. Students are divided into two groups, one dealing with an environment-related topic and one with a development-related topic. The members of the respective groups work on literature surveys and case studies together. The groups that submitted an essay to this contest did so after Professor Sudo suggested they pursue research with a concrete target in mind. Associate Sudo encouraged his students by saying, “Not to sound cliché, but I hope that the students I supervise will one day go on to succeed in the global arena.”

In their December 14 class, the fourth-year students, whose undergraduate thesis deadlines were fast approaching, gave presentations on the research questions they posed for their theses along with their hypotheses and outcomes on a range of topics, including poverty and climate change. By using this time to respond to questions raised by Professor Sudo and their classmates, these students were able to make final improvements to their thesis papers.

The following students are the members of the group that won the International Development Journal contest. They are conducting development research, and the title of their prize-winning essay was “Utilizing Hometown Tax Reductions via the Official Development Assistance Framework to Support Development in Indonesia.”

• SAKURADA Aki (College of Asia Pacific Studies, 4th year, Japan)
• YUSRIYYATUL Khoiriyah Nur Putri (College of Asia Pacific Studies, 4th year, Indonesia)
• HITOTSUMATSU Ryo (College of Asia Pacific Studies, 3rd year, Japan)
• KIBE Amanda Gathoni Macharia (College of Asia Pacific Studies, 3rd year, Kenya)
• NATASHA Talisca Adrianto (College of Asia Pacific Studies, 3rd year, Indonesia)
• TOKITO Aoi (College of Asia Pacific Studies, 3rd year, Japan)
• WATANABE Asami (College of Asia Pacific Studies, 2nd year, Japan)

Unfortunately, the essay submitted by the group conducting environment-related research was not selected for a prize.

The prize-winning essay was published in the December issue of the International Development Journal, which was a special issue to commemorate the journal’s 50th anniversary.

Professor Sudo and his seminar students