Much of the promise of blockchain – and digital dollars like USDC – lies in its ability to expand the perimeter of financial services to people around the world who are underserved by brick-and-mortar banking.
Blockchain and international aid are a natural match. There are nearly 1.4 billion people today who are unbanked, with more than 700 million living in extreme poverty. Climate change threatens to push 130 million more people into extreme poverty by 2030, with a majority residing in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.
Rumee Singh founded Rahat in 2020 to address this financial inclusion gap in her native Nepal and to create solutions that make it easier to channel humanitarian aid to people in need around the world.
Rahat was named the winner of Circle’s Unlocking Impact pitch competition at the April 2024 Paris event, earning a 75,000 USDC grant along with mentorships from Circle, the World Food Program and the International Fund for Agricultural Development.
The next Unlocking Impact pitch competitions will take place in New York this September in conjunction with the 79th Session of the UN General Assembly, and in October during the World Bank Annual Meeting in Washington, DC (view details here).
Earlier this summer, Singh sat down with us to talk about her vision for improving lives with portable internet dollars.
Could you tell us a bit about your background?
I grew up in Nepal and had the chance to study and build my career in the U.S. for 13 years. A cushy corporate job abroad gave me access to many conveniences in life but it has also made me realize the potential to make a positive impact back home. Nepal is highly agrarian and underdeveloped in terms of infrastructure – especially financial infrastructure.
Poverty and natural disasters are significant challenges in Nepal, worsened by climate change. As I started to carve my way back to Nepal, the throughline of my life and career on “impact and giving back to the community” was pretty clear to me. With a background in engineering and journalism, I have always been intrigued and excited by how we can leverage technology and communications to address and solve local problems; this has also fueled my passion and experience to do my bit to support communities.
What originally drew you to blockchain and international aid?
As an entrepreneur, I tend to see problems as opportunities. Like a lot of people around the world, I saw how the COVID pandemic created the need for better and open digital connections. That’s when we started to think about ways to use blockchain in humanitarian applications. Blockchain is borderless and easily accessible for people that can’t get served by traditional finance, and for those who can’t afford the fees.
I view the advance of blockchain similarly to the growth of telephony over the last 10-20 years. Mobile handsets and data have enabled billions of people to communicate in places that lacked traditional telephone infrastructure. Blockchain can do something similar for financial services.
How does Rahat make a difference today?
We focus on three major pillars to support vulnerable populations – immediate access to finance, digital and financial literacy, and building financial resilience for the most vulnerable. Rahat uses blockchain technology with smart contracts for fast and accurate aid delivery and payouts directly to beneficiaries’ phones, even before the onset of a climate disaster. Smart contracts verify predefined climate risk triggers using multiple independent sources. We use parametric data as an oracle so once the threshold is reached, smart contracts trigger early warning messages and an automatic token payout instantaneously.
Rahat can be used in low-tech environments, with SMS and USSD based features for beneficiaries without smartphones. Beneficiaries can redeem their tokens from participating vendors to easily buy goods and services or even cash out for local currencies.
So far, we’ve been able to reach 20,000 beneficiaries across Nepal, Pakistan, and Indonesia, thanks to support from a wide range of donors and partners. This monsoon season, we are working with the Danish Red Cross in Nepal to streamline their workflow in anticipatory action and support more than 5,000 households in getting access to efficient and timely early warning messages and cash support.
What does USDC enable that isn’t possible with traditional finance?
Using USDC widens the potential for beneficiaries to store and spend in the real economy, and it also works as portable cash that moves wherever migrants need to go. It’s impossible to overstate its access and cost benefits. The ability for people to access the world’s most important currency – and to save and store it at very little cost – is immensely valuable. Given blockchain’s transparency and traceability, it can also help stop corruption and ensure that beneficiaries receive the full amount that’s intended for them.
It’s truly a breakthrough for anyone who wishes to create and run a compliant, transparent, dollar-based humanitarian aid program.
What do the next few years look like for Rahat?
I’m truly proud of what our team has been able to accomplish thus far. But we have our eyes on so much more. At its core, this technology is borderless, which is incredibly empowering. We are seeking additional partners to reach deeper into Asia and Africa in the next few years, with a goal of supporting over 500,000 beneficiaries.
While we are already exploring microinsurance, we also intend to expand into additional products like savings for wider impact to build financial resilience - all powered by USDC and the blockchain.
Learn more about how Rahat is using USDC to support vulnerable communities.
1 The World Bank, retrieved from https://digitalfinance.worldbank.org/
2 The World Bank, retrieved from https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/poverty/overview
3 “COVID, climate change and poverty: Avoiding the worst impacts.” World Bank Blogs. Stephane Hallegatte & Brian Walsh. October 7, 2020. Retrieved from https://blogs.worldbank.org/en/climatechange/covid-climate-change-and-poverty-avoiding-worst-impacts
