Yu Yu has over two decades of international experience in sexual reproductive health and rights, gender equality & women's empowerment, and population and development in humanitarian and development settings. He was appointed as the Representative of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) office in South Africa, and Country Director for Botswana and Eswatini in January 2024.  

Before joining the UNFPA South Africa office, Yu Yu held various leadership positions in UNFPA offices in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Zimbabwe, Pakistan, and DPRK (North Korea). He led the plan and implementation of large and complex humanitarian and development programmes. He enabled strategic policy support to the host governments and partners in the areas of demographic intelligence, GBV, and health system strengthening, among others. 

During his days in the Ministry of Commerce in China, he provided policy support to the development assistance to China from multilateral partners, such as UNDP, UNFPA, UNOPS, and UNICEF. 

Yu Yu is passionate about advancing the rights and choices of all. He is a strong advocate for UN development system reform and has led collective UN efforts in gender equality and women’s empowerment, data, monitoring and evaluation, and youth. He served as RC a.i in Uzbekistan from July 2021 to February 2022 and coordinated the UNCT to prepare for the establishment of the Vision 2030 Fund, an innovative financing mechanism for SDGs. 

He holds an MSc in Public Policy and Management from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London and is also trained in international finance and trade.