Member Spotlight: Rathi Mani-Kandt

Rathi Mani-Kandt, Head of Women's Economic Empowerment at CARE USA, sat down with us to discuss CARE's work with women entrepreneurs in Pakistan, Peru and Vietnam, her priorities in 2022 for women’s financial inclusion and economic empowerment and what the FinEquity community means to her. 

FinEquity: Rathi, thanks so much for chatting with us. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself? A fun fact? Something that might surprise most people? Your superpower?

Mani-Kandt: My name is Rathi Mani-Kandt, I am the head of Women’s Economic Empowerment [at CARE USA], specifically focused on Women’s entrepreneurship and access to finance. I have been working in international development for over 15 years, with the majority of that focused on financial inclusion. I've lived in Chile, Cambodia and South Africa, and worked in many markets globally leading human-centered design projects, financial inclusion projects and women-focused programs. My favorite thing to do is run a design sprint — a fast-paced process leading to solutions to solve real problems for a team, business or product/service. 

My fun fact is I will try anything in terms of food - literally anything. One of my favorite snacks when I lived in Cambodia was fried frog. One of the most interesting foods I tried was “duck embryo” in Cambodia. I thought it was fascinating because you could request how “old” the duck embryo was - like how crunchy do you want this embryo to be - 14 days or 21 days?

As far as my superpower, I am genuinely interested in humans and different cultures, and think that having lived in multiple countries for long periods of time have honed my ability to break down cultural barriers, communicate cross-culturally, build strong friendships and work relationships across cultures. I feel like I am really good at telling when people are lying, half-truth telling, or really being honest with me, which is a useful superpower when I am doing interviews with customers!

FinEquity: How did you get involved in the economic empowerment, financial inclusion and women-centered design spaces? 

Mani-Kandt: I've always wanted to work in development. That stems from a genuine interest in other people and cultures and also from trips to India to visit family growing up — the inequality and poverty is everywhere there, and it really had an impact on me.

I first came across the concept of “microfinance” in graduate school and loved the idea of facilitating finance to a human that would allow them to solve their income problems — it was a solution that celebrated their agency. The field of financial inclusion has evolved a lot from just being focused on micro-credit to thinking through the range of products and services that could serve the needs of low-income populations. I've always believed access to finance to be one of the three pillars of development, outside of education and health. Access to finance is critical to households being able to smooth their consumption, manage shocks, invest in health and education and build wealth - all of which is foundational to achieving social and economic mobility.  

"I first came across the concept of 'microfinance' in graduate school and loved the idea of facilitating finance to a human that would allow them to solve their income problems — it was a solution that celebrated their agency."

I am really grateful for the varied experiences I've had in the field. I went from working at SEEP - which was great for understanding the microfinance landscape - to designing youth and financial services with Making Cents International where I really honed my qualitative research skills. I've always had a passion for getting to know the customer — it’s my favorite thing to do, interviewing customers to understand what’s working, what’s not working and why.  From there, I moved to Cambodia and ended up working for a design firm called 17 Triggers, where I led projects using human-centered design methods to get to better solutions or optimize products and services for the poor. It was good for my brain to work on more than just financial inclusion, but also sectors like solar, nutrition, maternal health, WASH, etc.

After five years there, I went to South Africa to work as the head of design thinking at Zoona, a fintech operating in Zambia and Malawi at the time. There, I led a team in end-to-end product design of a mobile money wallet that we launched in Zambia. What inspired me about Zoona was that many of the mobile money agents were women, which was the original vision of the company — to build a network of trustworthy women agents and entrepreneurs that owned their own Zoona kiosks. That experience was what really got me interested in a focus on women. 

One of the main reasons I came to CARE is that after all of my experiences in the field, I really feel like if I had to bet on anyone to move the needle, it would be women and girls — but the barriers they face are broad and deep, and they can’t overcome them all through their own agency. There are so many gendered structural and social norms barriers holding them back, and someone needs to tackle those too. 

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FinEquity: You’ve been the head of Women’s Economic Empowerment at CARE USA for about a year, can you tell us what that experience has been like so far? What are you working on that makes you excited?  

Mani-Kandt: As I said, the idea of supporting women entrepreneurs has been exciting because these women are fighters and truly inspiring - they represent true grit. Our work with the Ignite program, generously funded by the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth, has been an incredible ride - it started out pretty tough, being that it started in the middle of a pandemic and shutdowns were a challenge everywhere. But in the end, because of the amazing perseverance and commitment of the CARE teams I work with, we've been delivering a holistic package of services: financial services (a loan adapted for women), critical support services (mentoring, training, coaching, digital skill building, etc.), and outreach campaigns with messaging on financial and digital education, and social norm barriers that are holding women back, which really excites me. It’s been an incredibly tough time for credit markets, yet we have still been able to get 20,000+ loans out the door since last March, and have mobilized a total value of 25 million USD, with a primary focus on women micro and small businesses.

This capital has kept women resilient, still operating, or given them the opportunity to pivot, like how Marlita, an entrepreneur in Peru, was able to survive by pivoting into producing masks, or how Saeeda in Pakistan was able to get training from Ignite on leveraging WhatsApp and mobile money to keep taking orders and earning revenue. I am also really proud of some of our work that has started focusing on mental health for women -  relieving the stress of the unpaid care burden by emphasizing work-life balance or participating in art therapy as a way to de-stress like Hoa in Vietnam.

I think it will take really getting to know women – their needs, barriers, and realities – to design products and services and programs that make sense for them.

It’s  also exciting to see the financial inclusion industry taking a close look at gender barriers. We've made a lot of progress in the last 10 years in terms of financial inclusion, but mostly for men, so I'm happy the tides are moving this way. And I think it will take really getting to know women – their needs, barriers, and realities – to design products and services and programs that make sense for them.

FinEquity: What are your top priorities in 2022 for your work on women’s financial inclusion and economic empowerment?  We’re now a few years into “a pandemic world” – how has this reality shifted your priorities?  

Mani-Kandt: Given the uncertainty of the pandemic and operating in-person, we want to ensure that we have digital products and services that can continue to meet women’s needs and that the usage is there - that the products are really adding value. 

We want to make sure we spend this time understanding what isn’t and what is working for women entrepreneurs in the digital space – actually listening to what they want, what they don’t want, and understanding what would help them overcome their barriers to usage. “Digital” writ large seems to be the “answer” but we need to make a serious investment in designing for women using human-centered design, and ensuring that these products are services add value to their lives and are affordable. There are so many payments and mobile money wallets out there, and while we can help build digital capability, if the pricing model isn’t affordable it won’t be regularly used. 

Also, we really think there is a need to tackle more social norms, because at the root of the all the access and usage problems is a social norm or gender bias – girls not having access to education as much as boys and therefore not being as literate, not having the opportunity to get work experience, not being able to move as much as men, not having property rights, family and household duties that don’t allow women entrepreneurs to reinvest time and money in their business – all of these things hinder women’s abilities to access and use financial services to their full potential.

In that vein, we want to do more to tackle some of these bigger barriers and bring more men into the conversation – in small targeted groups, and also through our outreach campaigns and events that encourage them to share household duties and celebrate their moms, daughters and wives as economic powerhouses.  

We really think there is a need to tackle more social norms, because at the root of the all the access and usage problems is a social norm or gender bias.

FinEquity: Do you have a success story from your work with CARE you’d like to share? (An occasion  where you felt that you or your organization was making a real impact in the  lives of women in developing countries?)   

Mani-Kandt: In all three countries where Ignite operates, we've had really great success with our financial services partners in looking at how to remove some of the barriers to getting loans that often disproportionately impact women.

For example in Vietnam, we were able to reduce interest rates on loans by 2%, and have options for collateralized and non-collateral loans. In Peru, our partner Financiers Confianza did an adaptation of their existing business loan to target women only. The loan did not require a credit history, and women were allowed to get shorter-term loans and choose the repayment period. This was big, because they wanted to make sure they could pay back during the uncertainty of the pandemic and wanted smaller loans that were short-term (3,6 or 9 months). In Pakistan, our big win was working with a provider who really wanted to make the guarantor requirements easier for women – traditionally, there have been male guarantor requirements, but now they have made those requirements more flexible in terms of who can be the guarantor for a range of products. They are even suggesting a test where they will promote women being guarantors for male loans, which traditionally doesn’t happen as much. And in all three cases, there are digital options for the loans that we have promoted or co-designed, making it easier for women with mobility issues to access loans. 

As far as our work engaging men and boys, I was really proud to see RPP (a main media channel in Peru) interview some of our amazing entrepreneurs and start a meaningful conversation about men sharing more responsibilities in the household. 

"In Pakistan, our big win was working with a provider who really wanted to make the guarantor requirements easier for women – traditionally, there have been male guarantor requirements, but now they have made those requirements more flexible in terms of who can be the guarantor for a range of products. They are even suggesting a test where they will promote women being guarantors for male loans."

FinEquity: What  role does FinEquity play in your work? Where do you see value in this community? How has being a member shaped your work? 

Mani-Kandt: CGAP has always been a really strong stakeholder in my world in terms of thought leadership and learning and sharing, and so being a part of FinEquity is just a natural fit for the work we're doing in terms of really getting to know the stakeholders that are delivering similar types of services for women.

I think the most interesting thing about FinEquity is that they have a focus on women. They've done a really good job of bringing members into the conversation to talk about what we're doing, and facilitating more conversations around what else we could do. Identification of those gaps in financial inclusion for women is really important. And I don't know if anybody else is doing that right now in the financial inclusion space, is really convening a set of stakeholders to talk about how to make things better for women, to talk about social norms. 

So in a world where SEEP no longer exists, it's exciting to still have a forum space. And people that we can honestly reach out to to say "Hey, we want to share this. Where can we do it?" And I think it's been really valuable for CARE as we've moved more into working with women entrepreneurs and micro and small businesses, to have a platform to talk about that because we've traditionally only talked about savings groups.