TOR086: Peace Corps Partnerships with Tonia Wellons

Tonia Wellons has successfully straddled international development and locally oriented community-based development with full intention, skillfully borrowing lessons from one and applying them to the other. With 18 years of development experience, spanning senior leadership roles at the World Bank Group -- to social entrepreneur for a community-based social fund that she founded -- Tonia is skilled in leading global development alliances, managing multi-donor operations, and engaging local communities.

Tonia currently serves as Associate Director, Office of Strategic Partnerships for the Peace Corps and is responsible for leading the agency’s partnerships with government, the private sector, international NGO’s, and the broader volunteer-sending community. The OSP team is tasked with facilitating strategic opportunities that advance Peace Corps’ mission and the role of volunteerism as a tool for development.

Tonia served as Fund Manager for CGAP, a multi-donor initiative focused on financial access and inclusion, housed at the World Bank Group. She spent a significant part of her career working on USAID-funded capacity development initiatives during the immediate post-apartheid era in South Africa. Her work in South Africa with local government associations and City Managers (in the US and South Africa) successfully led to a pipeline of local talent for municipal leadership during this new democracy’s most significant transition period. While living in South Africa, Tonia was able to leverage that experience to establish ‘south-south’ partnerships with municipal government entities and partners in neighboring Zimbabwe, Zambia, and Swaziland.