WHO’S WHO IN MICROFINANCE: BRAC

BRAC, formerly Banglandesh Rural Advancement Committee, was initiated 1972 by Fazle Hasan Abed as an almost entirely donor-funded, small-scale relief and rehabilitation project to aid post-Liberation War Bangladesh. Today, it is one of the largest private development organizations employing 97,192 people (61 percent of whom are women). It actively carries out its twin objectives of poverty alleviation and empowerment of the poor in all 64 districts of Bangladesh, as well as in other countries including Afghanistan and Sri Lanka.

BRAC adopts a holistic approach in addressing poverty in that it employs all of its core programs: BRAC Economic Development Programme; BRAC Social Development, Human Rights and Legal Education Services Programme; BRAC Education Programme; and BRAC Health Programme to help its clients achieve and maintain livelihoods. Some of its innovations include: Challenging the Frontiers of Poverty Reduction – Targeting the Ultra Poor (CFPR-TUP) program, which integrates income generating activities, training, and health care services to target the bottom 25 percent of poor households, most of which are headed by women; and its Non-Formal Primary Education program, which targets children who are traditionally outside of the formal schooling system, and now accounts for 11 percent of primary school children in Bangladesh.

BRAC is the only non-governmental organization (NGO) that has its own independent Research and Evaluation Unit that provides analytical research support for improving existing programs, as well as directing new ones. BRAC operates on a national scale in partnership with the government and other organizations, contributing about 1.14 percent to the country’s gross domestic product (GDP). It has an annual budget of USD 245 million, of which more than 75 percent is self-financed. According to MIX, the microfinance information clearinghouse, BRAC’s 2006 year-end report reveals a gross loan portfolio of USD 350.1 million, total assets of USD 393.5 million, debt-to-equity ratio of 238.3 percent, return on assets (ROA) of 6.9 percent, and return on equity (ROE) of 23.3 percent. BRAC also reports 4.55 million active borrowers, of whom 96.4 percent are women, 45,234 members with savings accounts averaging USD 11. Since its inception, it has disbursed Taka 133.21 billion (USD 2.59 billion) with a recovery rate of 98.7 percent.

Fazle Hasan Abed, BRAC’s Founder and Chairperson, was educated in Dhaka and Glasgow Universities. During the time of the Liberation War of 1971, Abed was working as a senior corporate executive accountant at Shell Oil in Chittagong. He left his job and settled in London to support Bangladesh’s war effort. There, he initiated a campaign called Help Bangladesh to raise funds and awareness about the war. After the war and his return to Bangladesh, Abed set up BRAC to rehabilitate returning refugees in a remote area in the northeastern district of Bangladesh. As BRAC grew over the decades, Abed continued to ensure that it employed a holistic approach to target and empower the landless poor, particularly women, in rural Bangladesh.

He has received widespread recognition and awards including: Alan Shawn Feinstein World Hunger Award (1990), Olof Palme Award (2001), Social Entrepreneurship Award by the Schwab Foundation (2002), Gates Award for Global Health (2004), and UNDP Mahbud ul Haq Award for Outstanding Contribution in Human Development (2004). His academic achievements include: Doctorate of Laws from Queen’s University Canada (1994), Honorary Doctorate of Education, University of Manchester, UK (2003), Doctorate of Human Letters, Yale University (2007). He currently acts as Commissioner for the U.N. Commission on Legal Empowerment of the Poor (CLEP) and Global Chairperson for the International Network of Alternative Financial Institutions (INAFI). He is also Chairman of the BRAC Bank Limited and President of the Governing Board of BRAC University. Abed has many publications on participatory development, social mobilization, and disease control.

Dr. Mahabub Hossain is BRAC’s Executive Director since June 2007. He is a development economist known for his contributions to development economics and agricultural policy in South and Southeast Asia. In 1984, he received the Bangladesh Agricultural Economist Association’s first gold medal for his work. Prior to joining BRAC, he was head of the Social Sciences Division and leader of the Rainfed Ecosystems Program at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in the Philippines. From 1989 to 1992, he was Director General of Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS). Dr. Hossain obtained his Masters in Economics in 1969 from Dhaka University and PhD in 1977 from Cambridge University, UK. He has authored and co-authored numerous books and hundreds of papers.

Muhammad A (Rumee) Ali, managing director of enterprises at BRAC, obtained a degree in Economics in 1973 from Dhaka University and in 1975 began a 25-year banking career with Grindlays Bank. In 1997, as country head and general manager of Grindlays, he became the first Bangladeshi to head a major international bank in Bangladesh. In 2000, when Grindlays was taken over by Standard Chartered Bank, he was appointed CEO of the Standard Chartered Group in Bangladesh and headed both Standard Chartered Bank and Standard Chartered Grindlays Bank. In 2002, he was appointed deputy governor of Bangladesh Bank before joining BRAC.

Aminul Alam is the Deputy Executive Director of BRAC. After receiving a Masters in physics from the Dhaka University, he spent most of his career at BRAC, starting as program organizer in 1975. Since then, he has held the positions of Project Administrator, Regional Manager of the Rural Credit and Training Project, and Program Coordinator and Director of Field Operation of the Rural Development Program.

Dr. AMR Chowdhury, Deputy Executive Director of BRAC, received his BA in statistics from Dhaka University in 1976, and his PhD from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. He joined BRAC in 1977 as a statistician and since then, has worked as Evaluation Manager of the oral rehydration therapy program and was Director of the Research and Evaluation Division. Prior to BRAC, he worked as a research associate for the London School, received a Ford Foundation fellowship to study demography at the London School of Economics and Political Science, was a MacArthur Fellow at Harvard University, and worked as founding coordinator of the Working Group on Essential National Health Research in Bangladesh and principal investigator for Bangladesh of the Social Science and Immunization Research Project. Currently, he is also visiting professor at Columbia University, co-coordinator of the Task Force on Child Health and Maternal Health for the U.N. Millennium Project, as well as project director and coordinator for numerous international and national development projects. Dr. Chowdhury is a prolific author of many journal articles and books.

BRAC’s governing body consists of ten non-executive members, aside from Fazle Hasan Abed: Taherunessa Abdullah, Shabana Azmi, Debapriya Bhattachariya, Timothy G. Evans, Kazi Aminul Huque, Syed Humanyun Kabir, Ainun Nishat, Latifur Rahman, Rokia Afzal Rahman, and Maria Otero.

By Mary Fu

Additional Resources:

BRAC: About

BRAC: History

BRAC: Core Programmes

Microfinance Information eXchange (MIX): Profile for BRAC

BRAC: People at BRAC

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