Connector

Rae Hathaway (Rachel Binder-Hathaway)

Rachel is a Behavioral Economist and Research Consultant with the United Nations, and separately The World Bank. She holds an MPA from Harvard, where she continues to work as a Research and Teaching Fellow. Broadly speaking, her work sits at the intersection of Gender Equity, Behavioral Science, International Development and Program Evaluation. Over the past decade, Rachel’s work has focused on extending education, empowerment and economic development opportunities to vulnerable children and women so that they might overcome the barriers created by gender constraints and poverty. Rae presently serves three primary roles: as a Gender Specialist with UNDP, where she is developing the UN’s Global Strategy for Digitization, STEM and Inclusive Economic Growth; as an Economist with The World Bank; and as a Behavioral Scientist/Gender Specialist with UN Women. Prior to these experiences, Rae led the global training vertical at MIT’s Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) under the direction of Nobel Laureates Ester Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee. There, she provided capacity building, curriculum development and grant support to seven regional offices across the US, South Asia, Latin America, Africa, Europe and Southeast Asia. Additionally, she co-led J-PAL’s education courses and internal staff research trainings. She has worked as Lead Grant Writer for GlobalGiving; and Behavioral Research Fellow for Harvard’s Women and Public Policy Program, where she conducted research promoting Gender Diversity and Inclusive Organizational Design. In 2018, she was Content Lead for Harvard’s Women in Power Conference, co-chairing the Women in International Development panel, and running the conference’s workshop on Organizational Design (promoting gender equity, diversity and inclusion in the workplace). Rachel has developed Behavioral Economics programs on behalf of the Australian, Bosnian (BiH), and Nigerian governments (research topics include gender equity, DEI, and mitigating corruption in governmental supply chains). Beyond this, she has traveled extensively to Southeast Asia and Africa working on human rights initiatives, including a multiyear microfinance research project in Bangladesh/India; research and consulting projects with Grameen Bank under the leadership of Nobel Laureate Dr. Yunus; human rights advocacy on behalf of street children in Southeast Asia as Founder and President of Seeds of Change Consulting; and through her work as Chair of UUSC’s Economic Justice Department. Honors include: 2020 Spirit of Maine Achievement Award; 2018 MacArthur Award recipient; 2018 BE Works Visiting Scholar; 2016 Harvard Dean’s Award for Excellence in Student Teaching; 2013-14 HKS Henry Brooks Public Service Fellow; 2012 Fulbright Fellow; 2011 Gilman Scholar; 2011 Pearson National Scholar; 2011 USA Today All-Academic College Team.

Describe the Impact of a Project you’re focused on.

The Gender Innovation Lab conducts impact evaluations, which assess the outcome of development interventions to generate evidence on how to close the gender gap in earnings, productivity, assets, and agency. With the results of impact evaluations, we support the design of innovative, scalable interventions to address gender inequality. The goal is to enable project teams and policymakers to advocate for better gender integration using evidence. The impact evaluation I'm leading focuses on the Nigerian National Social Safety Nets Project, a federal program that provides targeted cash transfers, behavior changing training and top-up incentives to poor and vulnerable households. The CCT Households Uplifting Program aims to cover five million beneficiary households across 24 states before 2021. Additionally, NASSP is piloting a livelihood component to support households to pursue sustainable income generating activities. Tasks and responsibilities include: Research design and implementation, project management (including field coordination of over 300 staff members, questionnaire design, staff training), strategic planning, M&E, data analysis, and reporting.

What results do you hope for when the impact is amplified?

Our goal is to close the poverty gap in Nigeria, particularly in the Northern states where the average household income is 14% of that in southern states and urban centers.

What do you have to offer as a connector? What can you give as expertise to others?

As a connector, I'm fortunate to have a strong network of savvy social entrepreneurs, world class academics, innovative and rigorous researchers, and passionate international development practitioners. I am always happy to forge connections between passionate, thoughtful change makers. My areas of expertise: Managerial experience. Over a decade of leadership experience in education, non-profit and international development spheres, including senior program and project management, development and donor relations, grant writing/management, fiscal management, organizational design, talent acquisition and retention, and innovative learning solutions. Administrative experience. Executive level business administration (budgeting and finance, monitoring and evaluation (including KPIs, metrics and trend analysis), events planning, marketing and sales, strategic administrative solutions (proactive and solutions-driven, strong organizational skills, ability to multitask across a diversity or projects and tasks), adept at negotiation and interpersonal communications, mission driven, efficient and effective in task execution. Higher Education. Curriculum and course development, teaching graduate and executive education programs (in-person and online) in Econometrics, Statistics, Program Evaluation, Economics (behavioral, development, micro), Research Staff Training, Organizational Design, Finance, Accounting. Academia. Behavioral Science and Development Economics research, program evaluation, data collection and analysis (qualitative and quantitative), consultancy, strategic planning, and research team management, conferences, workshops, public speaking, presentations, publications.