Godwin Haruna
15 July 2008
analysis
Lagos — The Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC) is famous for its pro-poor services that have made the private organisation the largest not-for-profit institution in the world. Its founder, Fazle Hasan Abed, was recently in Nigeria to offer tips to some development workers. He also met with high level government officials to discuss ways to create an enabling environment for the sector. Godwin Haruna writes
Bangladesh was just overcoming the devastation and trauma of a liberation war and focused on resettling refugees returning from India. It was a monumental disaster. In that setting, poverty was the defining characteristic of a majority of the people. Government's response to such a dire situation was, at best, tepid and insignificant. It was against this background that Dr. Fazle Hasan Abed founded the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC) from the proceeds of his house to start the phenomenal outfit. It started as an almost entirely donor funded, small-scale relief and rehabilitation project to help tilt the balance in favour of the poor in his impoverished country.
Today, BRAC has emerged as an independent, virtually self-financed paradigm in sustainable human development. It is one of the largest Southern development organisations employing over 97,192 people, with 61 per cent women, and working with the twin objectives of poverty alleviation and empowerment of the poor. The organisation reaches more than 110 million people with its development interventions in Asia and Africa. Its vision, as revealed to a select audience, which comprise of bankers and development workers in Lagos last week, is of a just, enlightened, healthy and democratic world free from hunger, poverty, environmental degradation and all forms of exploitation.
With its innovative approach to development, following no rigid model but constantly expanding and growing through experiential learning, BRAC reputedly provides and protects livelihoods of 100 million of the 141 million people of Bangladesh. Diagnosing poverty in human terms and recognising its multidimensional nature, BRAC approaches poverty alleviation with a holistic approach. Speaking at the forum with development workers, Abed said through the unique integration of its core programmes, strategic linkages and constant evolution, BRAC has come to stand as a unique example of how a development organisation of the South can be sustainable without being largely dependant on donor assistance. He said BRAC's outreach covers all 64 districts of Bangladesh and 78 percent of the total number of villages in Bangladesh.
It has extended its tentacles to Afghanistan, and in the last few years, BRAC, which celebrated its 35th anniversary early this year, has worked in some African countries. Among these are Uganda, Tanzania, Southern Sudan, Liberia and Sierra Leone and it will be a matter of time before it established an outpost in Nigeria.
Abed told the rapt audience that although they have made a lot of inroad through the micro-finance strategy of ameliorating poverty, it was just one of its core programmes. He said it was important to make the poor earn income from their cash resources to enable them to create employment also. To the Average BRAC member, he said it was like a social movement encompassing various aspects of the human activity.
In answer to a question, he stated that BRAC does not require those enjoying its micro finance facilities to provide any collateral. Be that as it may, he added that they have recorded 98 per cent loan recovery from borrowers. According to him, while they borrow from the bank at 12 per cent interest rate, they lend to BRAC members at 15 per cent interest. Its research division established in 1975, has provided the compass with which operations of the NGO have been guided over the years.
According to a video clip shown at the forum, through its years of struggle against chronic deprivation, hunger and injustice, Bangladesh has been home to many innovations in tackling poverty. BRAC, it added, has acted as both the initiator and catalyst for many such innovations and change.
"Our initial focus was on assisting the refugees returning from India to their newly independent country. In 1973, we broadened our focus to long term sustainable poverty reduction. Over the course of our evolution, BRAC has established itself as a pioneer in recognising and tackling the different dimensions of poverty. Our unique, holistic approach to poverty alleviation and empowerment of the poor encompasses a range of core programmes in economic and social development, health, education, and human rights and legal services," Abed said.
He reinforced the fact that BRAC works with people whose lives are dominated by extreme poverty, illiteracy, disease and other handicaps. With multifaceted development interventions, it strives to bring about positive changes in the quality of life of the poor people of Bangladesh and elsewhere.
"BRAC firmly believes and is actively involved in promoting human rights, dignity and gender equity through poor people's social, economic, political and human capacity building. Although the emphasis of BRAC's work is at the individual level, sustaining the work of the organisation depends on an environment that permits the poor to break out of the cycle of poverty and hopelessness. To this end, BRAC endeavours to bring about change at the level of national and global policy on poverty reduction and social progress. BRAC is committed to making its programmes socially, financially and environmentally sustainable, using new methods and improved technologies. As a part of its support to the programme participants and its financial sustainability, BRAC is also involved in various income generating enterprises," he said.
Abed contends that poverty reduction programmes undertaken so far have bypassed many of the poorest. In this context one of BRAC's main focuses is the ultra poor, given that development is a complex process requiring a strong dedication to learning and sharing of knowledge.
BRAC's core values, which directs its work wherever it operates include: concern for people, especially the poor, human dignity, belief in human capacity, gender equity and fairness, and honesty and integrity. Others include discipline, creativity and innovation, participation, accountability, cost consciousness, teamwork, openness, sharing information and transparency, among others.
"We at BRAC understand that when a person is poor, they are poor for a whole number of reasons that compound the disadvantages they face. Our unique, holistic approach to poverty alleviation and empowerment of the poor encompasses a range of core programmes in economic and social development, health, education, and human rights and legal services," so declared the director of research, who accompanied Abed on the visit.
He stressed that BRAC is a combined effort of many thousands of people - starting from the interns, volunteers, donors, staff, executives, governing body and those working at fields. BRAC is the combination of hard work and determination of its people along with the support and encouragement of many others. He stated that the organisation builds the capacity of people to stand on their own and its operations do not revolve around micro-finance alone.
Earlier in her welcome address, Mrs. Ngozi Ezi-Ashi, executive director, Development Alternatives and Research Centre (DARC), said the interface with Dr. Abed was facilitated by the Ford Foundation in order to expose Nigerian development workers to new areas of activity. Ezi-Ashi added that the development workers had a lot to learn from Abed who has impacted immensely the lives of women in his country and elsewhere.
She tasked the audience to ask critical questions since Abed is an invaluable resource person that has done great things in the sector. As a development worker herself, who is into the critical area of capacity building for others, she said there was no end to learning the new tricks of the trade.
Prof. Leslye Obiora of the University of Arizona Law School, United States, and also a former minister of solid minerals development, who moderated the session spoke glowingly of Abed's feat. Obiora noted that since she first met him at a World Bank session in the mid-90s, she has not hidden her admiration for the great feat he has been able to perform in just one generation. She added that in subsequent meetings, Dr. Abed had encouraged her to start small and the counsel prodded her on to establish the Institute of Research on African Women, Children and Culture (IRAWCC). The project, she said is already in operation in rural communities of two states in Nigeria.
The whole essence, she stated, was to give back to the society that bred her after about a two-decade sojourn abroad in search of the proverbial golden fleece. One of the legs of the project is the outreach with some universities in the country in order to forge exchange between them and institutions in the United States.
Obiora informed the audience that the latest additions to BRAC's network of operations in Africa are Liberia and Sierra Leone and essentially, the focus is always on women, considered the most vulnerable. In response to a question on the focus on women, Abed said besides being on the lower rungs of the ladder in most societies, women are more trusted to repay loans than men.
He said every project that he has embarked upon, was started on a small scale before their eventual expansion. He therefore encouraged people to develop their own ways of giving back, no matter how small. He said the only area of partnership with the government, was in the area of immunization under their health programme. Abed added that the partnership has crashed under-5 mortality in Bangladesh. Other than this, all their activities had been initiated and executed all alone by BRAC, he said.
Abed and his entourage left for Abuja to meet high state officials after the Lagos parley. The issue most people present wanted them to table at Abuja is the seemingly high interest rate in Nigeria. This, they chorused, have impacted development work negatively in the country and the government needed to do something to crash lending rates by the banks if they are to recreate BRAC here.
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