By Roy Lie A Tjam
Sir Fazle Hasan Abed is the founder and chairman of the Bangladesh Rehabilitation Assistance Committee (BRAC). The committee is the world’s largest international NGO. Sir Fazle Hasan Abed is by all means an exceptional personality. Nine Honorary Doctorates have been bestowed upon him as well as various distinctions of merit for his quest in eradicating all form of poverty in Bangladesh and beyond.
In a lecture hosted by the Institute of Social Study in The Hague on 18th May 2015, Sir Fazle Hasan Abed recounted how he set up BRAC in order to deal with the multiple dimensions of poverty. Sir Fazle highlighted the numerous successes and challenges BRAC has faced in developing programmes in health, education and financial services with the underlying objective of assisting the poor to lift themselves out of poverty.
The marginalized group of the extremely poor often has no kinship. BRAC gives this group a face and helps by allocating grants and stipends. This became a 3 year project which proved effective. It drew the attention of the World Bank and was subsequently implemented in Africa.
The Bangladesh per capita income went from US. $90 to US. $1,340. BRAC has trained midwives nationwide. The maternal mortality rate has consequently dropped significantly. Furthermore the BRAC institute of education offers one year programs. In addition BRAC is the owner of the 2nd largest bank in Bangladesh. Sir Abed has without any equivocation contributed to the progress of Bangladesh. He will be meeting Queen Maxima before his departure.
