Abed was a strong believer that BRAC should liberate itself from dependence on external donor financing and should become a self-financed facility. To this end, he established a number of programmes which could generate financial surpluses that could be reinvested in other BRAC projects. The biggest of such projects was BRAC’s flagship microfinance programme which could recycle its surpluses and expand its clientele of women borrowers to around 8 million so that today it presides over one of the world’s largest microfinance programmes. Abed further drew upon BRAC’s brand name and market reach to invest in a variety of other socially oriented income generating investments such as BRAC’s stake in Bkash and commercially competitive entities such as BRAC Bank which is today one of the best run and most profitable banks in Bangladesh. These investments generated revenues which have further enhanced BRAC’s internal income generating capacity and enabled it to expand its programmes to reach even larger numbers of the disadvantaged.
The remarkable growth and reach of BRAC owes in large measure to the herculean endeavours of Fazle Hasan Abed, its founder. Abed combined extraordinary entrepreneurial and management skills with a genuine passion for public service which began with a commitment to the dispossessed of his own country, but has now been extended to the underprivileged across the world. Abed, who began his professional life as a highly paid executive of a multinational company in Bangladesh, went through the life changing experience of direct involvement, first during the cyclone of November 1970, one of history’s most devastating natural calamities, and then through his response to the genocide inflicted on the Bengalis in 1971. Abed’s exposure to the human consequences of such acts of violence by man and nature persuaded him to invest the rest of his life in helping not just the victims of devastation but those whose entire life is engaged in coping with the uncertainties of nature and the injustices of society.
In responding to the challenge of deprivation, Abed demonstrated a renaissance vision which equipped him to recognise its holistic nature in Bangladesh. He constructed a multi-faceted agenda for change which incorporated credit, women’s empowerment, legal literacy, healthcare, education and skills development so as to empower the excluded to stand on their own feet. His approach of transforming the excluded from victims into masters of their own fate encouraged him to build an organisation which could graduate from aid dependence to fiscal self-reliance through building up the market competitiveness of its income generating programmes.
Today BRAC is no longer dependent on the generosity of donors. Its internally generated revenues underwrite around 80% of its total budget. The growth and transformation of BRAC has made it a role model for other NGOs not just in Bangladesh but across the world. These achievements have been recognised through a plethora of awards and prizes which have been showered on Abed which gave him direct access to global political leaders, heads of international institutions and CEOs of the corporate world.
