Kate McKee

Biography

KATE MCKEE As Transition Director for the Partnership for Economic Inclusion (PEI), Kate leads start-up of this new global partnership to accelerate scaling up, innovation and systems change for the “graduation approach” and other targeted interventions that expand economic opportunities for extreme poor households and vulnerable individuals. Rigorous research has documented sustained gains in income, assets and economic empowerment for program participants, who have been primarily very low-income rural women. PEI is hosted by the World Bank and supports the governments, international agencies, NGOs and researchers that promote sustainable livelihoods for extreme poor households and other vulnerable segments. PEI focuses on rapid scale-up of programs and associated systems changes through: policy advocacy; testing of innovative solutions and approaches; a robust learning agenda; and development of good practices, metrics, operational tools and impact evidence. Deepening women’s empowerment effects through gender-intentional innovations is a major priority, as is adaptation of graduation-type approaches to new segments including refugees and displaced persons, extreme poor urban people and households affected by climate change and humanitarian crises. From 2006 - July 2017 Kate was a senior professional at CGAP, the premier financial inclusion think tank and resource center, where she led initiatives on graduation, consumer protection, responsible finance, savings, and client-focused financial services. Kate has broad policy, practitioner, and donor experience in enterprise development, women’s empowerment, agriculture and development finance through her leadership roles at the US Agency for International Development, the US Treasury Department, Self-Help in North Carolina, and the Ford Foundation. She trained as an economist (Bowdoin College, Princeton University).