Kanta Kumari Rigaud is a lead environmental specialist at the World Bank and has more than 25 years of professional experience in natural resources management, environment management, and climate change adaptation in multinational, national, academic, and non-governmental organizations.
Ms. Rigaud joined the World Bank in 2004 and currently works in the Climate Change Group on climate policy, knowledge management, and tools development. She recently co-led the Bank's engagement with the Potsdam Institute of Climate Research in developing the flagship "Turn Down the Heat" reports. She is also leading the Bank's work on developing screening tools to mainstream climate and disaster risks into early stages of project design and country dialogues across the Bank’s portfolio.
Ms. Rigaud is the Bank's focal point for the Pilot Program for Climate Resilience, one of the programs of the Climate Investment Funds (CIF). Her responsibilities include portfolio management, reporting, and budget management. She works with the regional teams and the CIF administrative unit to foster shared learning and knowledge exchange through communities of practice to advance the climate resilience agenda.
She previously worked in the Middle East and North Africa Region of the World Bank where she spearheaded and managed adaptation and conservation initiatives involving agricultural and rural landscapes in Yemen, Jordan, Tunisia, and Morocco and helped countries mobilize climate financing. From 1997-2004, she was a program manager for the biodiversity focal area at the Global Environment Facility (GEF), where she worked on policy and monitoring and evaluation.
Ms. Rigaud holds a Ph. D. from the University of East Anglia and was the recipient of the British Chevening Scholarship and the World Bank Graduate Scholarship award for her doctoral dissertation. She was also a senior research associate at the Centre for Social and Economic Research on the Global Environment at the University of East Anglia. Prior to her Ph. D., she worked with the World Wildlife Fund in Malaysia for several years leading the development of conservation strategies for provincial states in Malaysia and supporting policy-oriented research and dialogue with government and other key stakeholders. She has a master’s degree in behavioral ecology from the University of Stirling, UK; a bachelor’s degree in ecology; and a diploma in education from the University of Malaya. She has more than 35 publications, including articles in peer-reviewed journals and technical reports on natural resources and environmental and climate issues.