Courtenay Cabot Venton
International Development Economist and Founder & Executive Director, The Share Trust​

Sessions: Local Funding (Day 1, Morning)

Courtenay Cabot Venton is an international development economist, and the Founder and ED of The Share Trust, an organization that seeks to support and strengthen women’s Self Help Groups.  Courtenay works with a wide range of UN agencies, USAID, DFID, and other donors to evaluate the relative returns of social and environmental interventions, contributing to an evidence base for what works and what doesn’t when it comes to reducing poverty worldwide. Courtenay led a seminal study with DFID and USAID on the Economics of Resilience, and demonstrated that, by responding proactively to humanitarian crises, we can not only avert human suffering, but we could also save billions of dollars — dollars that are critically needed to support the growing number of people suffering from conflict and natural disasters.  Courtenay has been deputy team lead of FCDO's expert advisory team on their global COVID-19 response, where she has also been thematic lead on localization. She has been co-leading an initiative - the Local Coalition Accelerator - to help bridge bilateral funding with coalitions of local actors in the Global South.

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