Sadako Ogata (1927- ) is president of the Japan International Cooperation Agency and was UN high commissioner for refugees (1991-2000) and has over three decades of involvement with the UN. She was six times delegate of Japan to the General Assembly (1968, 1970, and 1975-1978), chairman of the Executive Board of UNICEF, and minister plenipotentiary at the Japanese Permanent Mission. From 1982 to 1985 she represented Japan on the UN Commission on Human Rights. The rest of her career has mostly been spent in teaching and administering international relations at the International Christian University Tokyo and Sophia University Tokyo. She was co-chair of the Commission on Human Security (2002-3). She was born in Japan and educated there at the University of the Sacred Heart and at Georgetown University, and the University of California, Berkeley. Her autobiography of her years in UNHCR is The Turbulent Decade.

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