Saori Kawai is an Associate Professor in the Department of Global Studies, Faculty of International Studies at Ryukoku University, Japan. She obtained her Ph.D. after completing the doctoral program in Economic Development and Policies at the Graduate School of International Cooperation Studies, Kobe University. Her research focuses on regional and local development, economic and public policy, as well as poverty and inequality in Brazil. From 2010 to 2012, she served as a researcher and adviser in the Economic Section of the Embassy of Japan in Brazil. She is the author of A New “Order and Progress” in the Brazilian Economy (IDE, 2015), and co-author, with Rodrigo Pires de Campos, of Japan’s ODA to Developing Countries in the Health Sector: Overall Trend and Future Prospects (Springer, 2023).