by nowchar | Oct 22, 2014 | BRAC, BRAC UK, BRAC USA, Fazle Abed, Kravis Prize
Once a program has been successfully implemented, the work isn’t over: It’s only just begun. That was the message brought this fall by Sir Fazle Abed to New Haven, Connecticut, where he addressed a group of students in the Yale School of Management. One of the more crucial aspects of any NGO project is its sustainability factor, said Abed, who became the second recipient of the Henry R. Kravis Prize in Nonprofit Leadership in 2007 (the first was Landesa’s Roy Prosterman in 2006). If sustainability isn’t tested and confirmed, longterm success on a much larger scale will be harder to achieve. “We make the programs effective first, then we want to make them efficient by routinizing tasks that are essential and discarding those which are not essential,” he told students during a lecture as part of Yale School of Management’s Leaders Forum Series. “Then, we can scale up.” Abed founded the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee in 1972 to address poverty in remote parts of Bangladesh. That mission has grown to touch lives in so many other areas as well — Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Uganda, Tanzania, Southern Sudan — largely because BRAC has been careful to do exactly what Abed described for his Yale audience. Thanks to a research division, BRAC has been able to test and assess every micro-finance, educational reform, and women’s empowerment program for strengths and weaknesses before scaling up these efforts. Such testing can be costly, however, which is why BRAC has also developed social enterprises (micro lending, printing presses, craft shops, schools) to generate funding that enables BRAC to support new projects. In fact, charitable...
by lwang | Apr 23, 2014 | BRAC, BRAC UK, BRAC USA, Civil Society, Fazle Abed, Kravis Prize
Who are the world’s 50 greatest leaders, according to Fortune Magazine? Along with Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama and actress-activist Angelina Jolie, Fazle Abed has been honored as one of the world’s “50 greatest leaders” by the magazine for turning the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC) into a major force for social change in the non-profit, social sector. Abed was awarded the second annual Henry R. Kravis Prize in Leadership in 2007 for his visionary work with BRAC and its expansion from serving the poor in northeastern Bangladesh to helping more than 130 million around the world. Fortune Magazine identified the 77-year-old Abed, who was knighted in 2010, as an inspiring figure who is “making the world better.” “After Bangladesh fought a war to become independent,” Fortune magazine announces, “Abed, 77, established the Brac to aid the rural poor, including 10 million returning refugees.” Abed (pictured above), according to the magazine report, is the lone Bangladeshi to make the top 50 list. Abed ranks at #32 on the Fortune list. Other figures included in the top 50 list are Pope Francis, investor Warren Buffett, and former U.S. president Bill Clinton. RELATED: BBVA Award goes to Pratham Nonprofit management: Focus on “funamentals, not fads”: Kravis Prize-related article in the Stanford Social Innovation Review...
by lwang | Jul 18, 2013 | BRAC, BRAC UK, BRAC USA, Civil Society, Fazle Abed, Kravis Prize
Central European University has awarded the 18th Open Society Prize to Sir Fazle Hasan Abed, founder and chairperson of BRAC, recipient of the Kravis Prize in 2007, and the affiliated BRAC University, at its commencement ceremony in June. The Open Society Prize, which is given “to an outstanding individual whose achievements have contributed substantially to the creation of an open society,” has been awarded at past ceremonies to a multitude of prominent world figures, including: Sir Karl Popper, author of The Open Society and its Enemies; Vaclav Havel, playwright and former president of the Czech Republic; Richard Holbrooke, the late senior U.S. diplomat; and Kofi Annan, former secretary-general of the United Nations. During his acceptance speech, Abed described his early experiences with BRAC and reflected on the lessons that he has learned along the way with the organization: “After my country’s independence, I began working to try to help the poor of Bangladesh. My early colleagues and I initially thought that BRAC would be a short-term relief effort. But the realities of entrenched poverty soon changed our minds. I have learned much along the way. Perhaps the most important thing I learned was that when you create the right conditions, poor people will do the hard work of defeating poverty themselves.” RELATED: Landesa offers perspectives on China’s changing...
by lwang | Sep 28, 2012 | BRAC, Education, Fazle Abed, Poverty Reduction, Sustainable Development
Isn’t it remarkable how one individual can transform an entire country? Kravis Prize winner Sir Fazle Hasan Abed can most definitely be credited for Bangladesh’s tremendous progress over the last 40 years as the founder of the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC), the largest nongovernmental development organization in the world. The Asia Foundation’s Alma Freeman — blogger for In Asia, a weekly insight and analysis from the foundation — had the privilege of sitting down with the 2007 Kravis Prize winner to discuss the changes he has witnessed in Bangladesh and his goals for the future. “The most dramatic change has been women’s role in society. Women’s literacy rate used to be almost 30 percent less than men, now it’s almost equal. It has been wonderful to see so many children being educated…I can see that BRAC has changed people’s lives dramatically, particularly for those children who have had the advantage of education.” Based on the prediction that Bangladesh will become a middle-income country by 2021, Abed remarks: “If a country attains middle-income status, and 10 percent of the population is still under extreme poverty, if they can’t feed themselves and their children, then it doesn’t mean much to me… Bangladesh has done well, but that doesn’t mean that we have attained all of the things that we still want to do with our country.” To learn more about the inspiring work of Sir Fazle Abed and BRAC, go to our page. “In Conversation with BRAC’s Sir Fazle Hassan Abed”[The Asia Foundation, September 19,...
by lwang | Aug 30, 2012 | BRAC, Fazle Abed, Poverty Reduction, Sustainable Development
Kravis Prize winners are always innovating to help solve pressing problems in today’s world. For example, BRAC, founded by 2007 Kravis Prize winner Sir Fazle Abed, has reworked microfinance to create a new “graduation model.” The groundbreaking model was featured in Live Mint: “The model targets the ultra-poor and initiates a multi-pronged intervention with them, typically comprising mandatory savings, a subsistence allowance, transfer of a productive asset (usually livestock), health and livelihood trainings, etc. The basic idea is to provide the ultra-poor a safety net and an opportunity to start thinking of savings and investment in some form of productive livelihood activities.” Since BRAC introduced this program, the graduation pilots have been replicated in multiple sites around the world, “as an intervention to reach out to the poorest of the poor with a time-bound investment aimed at providing a social safety net and building their productive capacities.” The model has been adapted and implemented in eight countries: Ethiopia, Ghana, Haiti, Honduras, Pakistan, Peru, Yemen and India. Through continuous evaluation, researchers are monitoring the impact of the graduation pilots. In fact, researchers studying the pilot in West Bengal found that per capita food consumption increased 15 percent; per capita income increased 20 percent, while income from livestock and agriculture also showed significant gains. According to the research, there is an impressive 27 percent rate of return on the program investments! To learn more about the amazing work of Sir Fazle Abed and BRAC, go to our page. “The ‘graduation model’ in microfinance.” [Live Mint, August 14,...
by lwang | May 16, 2012 | BRAC, Fazle Abed
Here at the Kravis Prize, we’re proud that our winners are acclaimed leaders in their fields. Their groundbreaking work has even received recognition from renowned political leaders. On May 6, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with Sir Fazle Hasan Abed, 2007 Kravis Prize winner and BRAC Founder, and Grameen Bank Founder Muhammad Yunus on a recent visit to Bangladesh to discuss U.S.-Bangladesh relations with Clinton. Clinton said BRAC, the world’s largest non-governmental organization, and Grameen Bank were “viewed internationally as the two best development organizations in the world.” Abed and Yunus are “national treasures,” she added. That’s very high (and well-deserved) praise from our very own U.S. Secretary of State! “Work for strong democracy, Hillary urges Bangladesh leaders” [The Hindu, May 7,...
