Bagladesh was born after inheriting the double shortest straw of colonisation : Colonised by the british, then partitioning took away access to the region's superport calcutta and made Bengali's a colony of (West Pakistan); by independence in 1971, 90% of the peoples were in villages without electricity; the government barely had resource base to organsiae the 10% of citizens
Fazle Abed had just becose Asia's leading young oil company ma- royal dutch shell's CEO for his homeland- when a cyclone in 1970 killed a million people around him - several months working on disaster relief changed his life; he finished his contract with shell; sold his putney flat; with about 15000 pounds started up Bangladesh Rural Advanacent Cooperation
The cooperation platforms he designed through 25 years serving women villagers without electricity changed aid; wherever possible Abed sought to design business microfranchise business for village mothers not accept (endless) charity; wherein BRAC did grants it designed something world class that others came to benchmark
There was an accident that business schools have never properly taught. Because Abed spent all his funds inititally rebuilding 15000 homes that had been flattened by the war of independence - he was always designing micorfranchises needed to serve meat-villages of 100000 people. This meant that when BRA-C researched eg the most effective lo]cal rice science- it was a significant R&D partner among all Borlaug's green revolution alumni. Bty the 1970s The Economist was publishing that rice was so adaptable that 1000% more pee local community was growable between best and worst adapatation. When the village health's service was iintially built round women doordashing 10 basic medicines (vilage nothers carried thise on foot- each had a weekly map of 300 homes to serve). BRAC became a national wholesaler of basic medicines at the lowest price but good quality.
Markets that abed designed womens business in were this designed with accompaniedvalue chains that always integrated their efforts. Historically culture had not expected women to be productive. When a nation wastes half its potential workforce, that's neither social nor economic. Ironically tropical contimenta china was going tyhrough its own version of needing women to bne a sproductive as men. Duie to the one child law half ogf familie's prof=gress depended on the enetrpreneurship oif 20 simeything women. Open souring of solutions that ended vilage poverty was just plain human 1970-1999 - and notably UNICEF leader , an immunologist called James Grant, celebrated such a twinning of female empowered nation building (never leaving out the poorest or most isolated)
25 years after starting brac some partners brought fiurst solar and mobile opportunities. At teh same time silicon valley millennium goal cheerleaders asked Abed to go international. His reposnse was to design a second meta-collaboration platform - a university which he intended to design solutions uniting sustainability graduates the world over.
Its from that perspective we have aimed to curate the 30 most extraordinary cooperations in human development economics. Of course Abed hoped taht his friends and alumni would leap forward with them through what at his death in 2019 was the end of the web 2 era and the last decade of sdgs being possible which millennials see as web3 or year round competitions such as www.sdgmetaverseprize.org . How would abed's 30 cooperations that empowered billion poorest Asian women continue to celebrate heroic entrepreneurial revolution. Abed was very clear - what he had designed was over 100000 global village trainers - educators can change community building bottom up and openly in line with natute. This is not what west top businenss schools teach as financial administration. What it does do is celebrate way above zero-sum networks such as how life critical knowhow multiplies value in application unlike consuming up things. Until we know whether millennials are the first sustainability of the first extinction generation - we hope you will find spending time in Abed and 1 billion womens cooperation platforms joyful as well as productive.
Of course any errors are my reporting chris.macrae@yahoo.co.uk ; any imprivements are welcomed; when we first started traveling to bangladesh in 2007 we started playing an annual game with students - if they could choose a pack of 52 worldrecordjobs.com - who'd the other 51 most relevant to abed and billion womens empowerment be.With the 15th annual edition for 2022-2023 we welcome the world's first year round sdg youth competition - www.sdgmetaverseprize.org
Glasgow Adam Smith scholars who had helped launch out interest with the 250 adam smith moral sentiments lecture have built 2 journals - social busnenss and new economics and have announced that june 2023will celebrate 265th adam smith anniversary with the launch of microeducatiosummit. Abed was always saying value education and cooperation. It took me much longer thatn it should to realsie how closely abed's values aligned with von neumann who my father met in 1951 and was given economics journalists most valuable scoop - what goods will people do with 100 times more tech every decade 1930s through 2020s.
Lik Abed neumann and dad had seen a lot of bad before they could mediate good. In fact most of the lives of the greatest mathematican netwrk ever was spent on the nuclear bomb race; my dad emmpathised , he spent his last fays as a teenage navigaor allied bomber command , burma campaign. Imagine if the brightest or most energetic young brains got an opportunity to focus on something other than the fisrt half of 20th century' wars.
Of course there are those who may read did from early 2022 who may say Europe in incapable of ending wars. Well, we have one last leap of 100 times more tech to meta- and mathematically if most peoples nations are not graviated the sustaiability way round each goal, its hard to see 8 billion pesosns will get another better chacce. Its certain what women empowered economics aims to map.
