Susan Abbott

Susan Abbott is currently Information Resilience and Tech Advisor, WWC Global, a Pequot Company, for USAID's Democracy, Resilience and Innovation team. Abbott is also an independent consultant and specializes in working with non-profit organizations, universities, and donors in the areas of independent media development, civil society strengthening, and digital rights/internet freedom. She is an advisor to the Global Forum for Media Development and the Co-Chair of the Media Sector Development Working Group, which is part of the International Association of Media & Communication Research. Abbott received her BA from American University's School of Public Affairs, and her MA from Central European University in Budapest, where she studied Political Science. Abbott is currently a doctoral researcher at the Communication and Media Research Institute at the University of Westminster in London and is undertaking a comparative study of foreign aid and media development after the Cold War, and assessing the impact of American and European strategies. Abbott has authored a number of publications including: International Media Development: Historical Perspectives and New Frontiers, and Evaluating the Evaluators:  Measures of Press Freedom and Media Contributions to Development.

Abbott provides consulting services in the areas of monitoring, evaluation, research and learning (MERL) to a variety of organizations, and has work experience in Bangladesh, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Hungary, Jordan, Mozambique, North Macedonia, Serbia, Somalia, Ukraine, and Zimbabwe as well on many global/international advocacy and network projects. She has worked on projects funded by the British government, the Swedish International Development Agency, European Union, the US Agency for International Development, US Department of State, and a variety of private foundation donors. Abbott works closely with media outlets, NGOs, and civil society organizations on developing M&E tracking systems, learning about  social science research methods they can use to inform evidence-based decision making and organizational learning, increasing institutional capacity around M&E, and on designing M&E frameworks. Abbott also works with NGOs on developing their fundraising strategies, finding partners for large grant applications, and developing concept papers and ideas into fully-funded projects.