RAISING >2 BILLION HUMANS INTELLIGENCES BY 25 YEARS. After helping with recovery 1970 cyclone killing half a million of his compatriots, Fazle Abed was nearly assassinated by his employer Royal Dutch Shell and the Pakistani army. Fortunately he spent his remaining 50 years celebrating intelligence development of the poorest 2 billion parents notably growth of 1billiongirls. For over quarter of a century all networking was done by word of mouth and sight of book because in Asia 20th c village life still meant no access to electricity grids or telephone lines. Fortunately both Computing Whizs Jobs & Gates were both partly dis-satisfied with western apps of pc networks which they had begun in 1984. Around 2001 they both hosted silicon valley 65th birthday wish parties for Abed as global village tech envoy. Partners in life critical challenges had begun to bring abed's village mothers solar and mobile to co-create with. Abed changed the way Jobs saw tech futures of education (see ) and how Gates saw global health fund foundations and overall the valley's university stanford started to see as far as intelligence of Women and Youth goes the most life critical knowhow for 2 billion humans wasnt directly measurable in 90 day monetary flows; it was measurable in increased life expectancy by over 25 years during Abed's community servant leadership. Probably the greatest lift in intelligence until celebrations of what Fei-Fei Li opened the worlds eyes to in 2012, and Melinda Gates and Nvidia's Jensen Huang were first to helped AIforall lift since 2014.

Thursday, December 31, 2009

2009 interview with abed 1.4 includes 3 investors that started brac bank and gabv.org

 Interview http://www.ifpri.org/PUBS/newsletters/IFPRIForum/if24/if24abed.asp

Fazle Hasan Abed, Founder and Chairman of BRAC (formerly Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee)

IFPRI Forum talks with Fazle Hasan Abed about BRAC’s activities to benefit the poor in Bangladesh, Afghanistan, and Africa.

FORUM: BRAC, which is one of the largest nongovernmental development organizations in the world, has strong programs that target the poorest. How have these clients been affected by the food price crisis and the current financial turmoil?

Abed: In Bangladesh, nearly 40 percent of the population is poor and 20 percent is extremely poor. The poor spend 70 percent of their income on food, and nearly 40 percent on rice, the dominant staple food. During 2007-08, the price of rice increased by 60 percent and the price of edible oil almost doubled. Since the level of consumption of rice must be maintained to meet energy needs, the increase in rice prices forced the poor to spend more on rice and cut back on other food items, both in terms of quantity and quality. This has resulted in adverse nutritional outcomes, especially for children. It has also had a negative effect on children’s school participation.

A BRAC study on the impact of rising food prices found that between 2006 and 2008, there was a 9 percentage-point increase in wasting among children under 5 and a 10 percentage-point increase in the proportion of underweight children. This has caused about 650,000 more children under the age of 5 to become malnourished in the short term. Given the already high and obstinate levels of child malnourishment in Bangladesh, this trend is very worrying.

BRAC now reaches almost 7 million mostly poor households with programs on health, education, and microfinance. One specific program on eliminating extreme poverty targets the bottom 10 percent of households—households that remain outside the purview of most anti-poverty programs. Its main aim is to develop capacity for income generation by providing a minimum amount of assets, along with intensive training and supervision on the effective use of those assets, for two years. It is expected that after the two-year period, those households will be able to sustain the gains achieved through participation in labor and tenancy markets and in microfinance programs, and can emerge out of the poverty trap. A “quick and dirty” monitoring of the coping mechanism for the escalation in food prices found that beneficiaries who have been with this program for a longer period did better in coping with the crisis.

FORUM: The current financial and economic crisis poses serious challenges to countries, rich and poor, across the globe. BRAC is very active in banking with and for the poor. How has BRAC itself been affected and how will BRAC’s priorities or approach change in response to the crisis?

Abed: The current financial and economic crisis will increase the cost of loan funds for microfinance. This will reduce the small amount of surplus that we generate from the microfinance program, which is reinvested for social-sector services such as education and health, for which we cannot charge our beneficiaries. Nearly 20 percent of our budget of about US$450 million is financed with grants from development partners. We have not yet faced any problem in mobilizing this support, but we remain concerned about the decline of grants in the future if the global financial crisis continues.

Finding ways to increase our efficiency through management restructuring and greater use of technology will be key to the new business model of pro-poor microfinance. The right type of regulatory arrangement that will enable microfinance institutions to mobilize voluntary savings and take advantage of emerging technological opportunities is also an important ingredient for the new business model for microfinance.

FORUM: BRAC has recently expanded to several countries in Africa. In what ways do lessons from your experiences in Bangladesh apply and not apply in the African context?

Abed: The key elements of BRAC’s approach to comprehensive rural development and poverty alleviation are piloting in response to an emerging challenge; learning, adapting and innovating from the experience; and scaling up to achieve national-level impact. BRAC believes in flexibility in operations, attention to detail, learning from mistakes, necessity for change, continuous training for capacity enhancement of staff, and sensitivity to local cultural values and customs. These principles and values have been helpful guides in BRAC operations outside Bangladesh.

The ground realities within which BRAC’s approach evolved are widespread poverty, governance failure, the uncertainties and frustrations of post-conflict political environments, deep inequities, weak and missing markets that fail to serve the poor, and unnecessary and preventable deaths. Despite complex differences across countries and cultures, we felt our experiences of working with the poor in these realities and the relatively lower cost of using experienced Bangladeshi staff for training locals at the initial stage of replication gave us an edge over many organizations working in international development.

Before we started work in Africa, we went to Afghanistan in 2002. By 2005, we were inspired by our ability to adapt the BRAC approach to Afghan ground realities, by the positive response from local leaders and people, and by the rapid expansion of operations within a short span of time. We felt that we may have something to offer from our combined experiences in Bangladesh and Afghanistan to further energize and accelerate poverty-alleviation efforts in other countries of the South. It is this spirit of South-South camaraderie that drives and underpins our overseas work.

The African context itself is widely varied. We work in relatively stable and growing economies such as Uganda and Tanzania. We also work in post-conflict countries with their own diverse complexities, such as Southern Sudan, and recently in Liberia and Sierra Leone. Our entry point is the microfinance program, which allows us to build the outreach and the community-level social infrastructure on which we build other activities in healthcare services and agriculture. Making an impact at the national level is one of the core objectives driving our work in Africa.

With the strong track record of our work in Bangladesh and Afghanistan, our willingness and ability to adapt and deliver, and the strong support of many top leaders in African countries as well as of donor agencies, civil-society leaders, and think tanks in developed countries, we feel that we can create effective pro-poor development and an alliance with a southern core.

FORUM: BRAC has participated in partnerships with the private sector. What kids of innovations do you see emerging from the private sector? How can the private sector be more engaged in reaching the poor in ways that benefit both business and the poor?

Abed: BRAC has never shied away from entering into the private-sector domain as a pro-poor actor, to create more secure and rewarding links between the market and the livelihoods of the poor. This has led BRAC to venture into many frontier-market developments that create backward and forward linkages to the enterprises of the poor. BRAC experiments in high-risk ventures have sometimes shown the private sector ways to invest in a new area.

For instance, when BRAC started introducing high-yielding poultry as an enterprise for poor women borrowers, it soon became apparent that a timely supply of quality day-old chicks was a major constraint, which led BRAC to set up hatcheries that are run commercially. Another constraint was high-quality poultry feed; that led BRAC to engage in marketing imported hybrid maize seeds, and setting up feed mills. A whole system of logistics management had to be woven around these enterprises to connect to the poultry business of the poor. This is why at BRAC we like to refer to our commercial enterprises as ‘program-support enterprises.’

Such an approach to building viable private-sector enterprises as a pro-poor actor with the explicit aim of poverty alleviation requires an innovative structure of ownership and governance. The private sector’s partnership with NGOs is driven mainly by two factors: commercial and regulatory compliance. The most important issue that stands in the way of a meaningful and sustainable partnership is the fact that markets do not attach any premium to “socially responsible” behavior by corporations. This results in traditional private-sector actors concentrating mostly on financial parameters and compliance, which is rewarded by the market.

The real potential of a meaningful and sustainable partnership will perhaps emerge from NGOs pioneering sustainable businesses that fulfill a social need and the private sector partnering to bring in core competencies in terms of innovations in products, processes, and financial discipline. This will create efficiencies that will ensure longer-term sustainability. BRAC’s investment in BRAC Bank Limited (BBL), which focuses on creating access to finance for small and medium enterprises, can be seen as an example. BBL started as a closely held company, with BRAC, Shorecap (a U.S.-based investment company), and the IFC as sponsors. Shorecap, which has experience in this sector, and BRAC, which has a strong background in financing microenterprises, leveraged their synergies to the benefit of BBL. Today, BBL is a public limited company that is considered a pioneer and a role model in the field of small- and medium-enterprise financing.

kim jonker 2009 paper abed published stanford innovation review

 https://ssir.org/articles/entry/in_the_black_with_brac

 Brac Solar began in 1998 .. This paper chronicles its first 11 years ; in 2010s Brac Solar was discontinued when the government largely took over the industry -i was always part of Abed's purpose to accerate adoption but not to stay in mature sectors once BRAC could no longer offer advantages in effective efficient expansion 

http://dspace.bracu.ac.bd/xmlui/handle/10361/784

conversely brac was a trusted partner with government labbs where its reach could commercialise a low cost service- this began with the life saving oral rehydration (up to a third of all infants of bangaldesh's first 20 years being saved by motehrs who learnt how to mix salt sugar an d bolied water in correct proprtions)


brac pountrly and dairy are nation leading market sectors integrating gov lab inventions

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

2.6 list of brac enterprises 2009

 

BRAC Enterprises

Aarong

Initiated 1978

Description Aarong is one of the most unique

heritage brands for retail clothing, linen,

shoes, accessories and home decor

products.

Total Outlets 9

BRAC Dairy

Initiated 1998

Description BRAC Dairy was established to provide a

fair price for milk to the members of BRAC’s

Village Organisations who invested micro

loans received from BRAC for cows.

Dairy Chilling Centres 100

Artificial Insemination

Initiated 2000

Description Artificial Insemination enterprise was set up

to create synergies with the BRAC Dairy

enterprise as livestock is considered as an

important tool in poverty alleviation.

Service Centres 68

BRAC Poultry

Initiated 1996

Description BRAC Poultry has contributed to the overall

growth of the poultry industry in the country

and created income-generating activities for

millions of rural poor.

Poultry Farms 6

BRAC Feed Mills

Initiated 1999

Description BRAC Feed Mills were established in 1999

with the objective to produce quality feed for

poultry, cattle and fish.

Feed Mills 2

BRAC Broiler Processing & Marketing

Initiated 2001

Description BRAC Broiler Processing & Marketing is

the largest automated plant in Bangladesh

was set up to meet the growing demand for

dressed chicken.

Meat Processed 1600 metric tons (approx.)

BRAC Fisheries

Initiated 1998

Description BRAC Fisheries supplies fish spawn, prawn

PL, fish fry, and fingerling/juvenile in response

to the needs of commercial fish farms that

have emerged due to the decline in wild

stocks.

Fish Hatcheries 12

BRAC Salt Industries

Initiated 2004

Description Salt Industries was initiated in 2004 to

respond to a public health need - the lack of

iodized salt in the country.

Total Production 11,149 metric tons

BRAC Enterprises Annual Report 2009 41

Sanitary Napkin & Delivery Kit

Initiated 1999

Description Sanitary Napkin and Sterilized Delivery Kit

production centre were setup in 1999 to

answer public health need of rural women in

Bangladesh.

Production Centres 6

BRAC Cold Storage

Initiated 1980

Description BRAC Cold Storage operates a storage

facility in Comilla district to support farmers

store their harvested yields.

Capacity 4,000 metric tons

BRAC Tea Estates

Initiated 2003

Description BRAC Tea Estates were acquired in 2003

and established as an income- generating

concern where surplus income is diverted to

the development programmes.

Tea Gardens 4

BRAC Sericulture

Initiated 1978

Description BRAC sericulture organises women to

undertake mulberry cultivation, silkworm and

seed production, reeling and spinning of silk

yarn, and weaving and marketing silk.

Land Under Mulberry 2,961

Cultivation (in acres)

BRAC Horticulture

Initiated 1994

Description BRAC Horticulture initiated with a purpose to

produce good quality seedlings and make it

available throughout the country.

Horticulture Nurseries 15

Alternate Energy & Renewables

Initiated Recycled Handmade Paper: 2000; BRAC

Solar: 1998

Description BRAC Recycled Handmade Paper (RHMP)

synthesises paper from materials gathered

from several projects and branch offices

under BRAC, while BRAC Solar installs solar

panels in rural, remote and off-grid areas.

Facilities/unit offices RHMP Production Unit: 1

BRAC Solar Unit Offices: 276

BRAC Printers

Initiated 1977

Description The printing enterprise is a full-service desktop

publishing facility and 80 per cent of its

materials production is for BRAC’s education

programme and office requirements.

BRAC Printing Pack

Initiated 2005

Description The BRAC Printing Pack produces finished

flexible packaging materials and provides

employment to over 100 workers.

Total Production 1500 metric tons (approx

3 brac health summary from 2009 report

 Achievements 2009

Essential Health Care

100 million people covered in all 64 districts of

Bangladesh

Healthcare for the Ultra Poor

249,500 families covered in 40 districts

126,836 patients received health subsidy

Maternal, Neonatal and Child Health (urban)

5,715,452 people served in 6 city corporations

426 delivery centres

100,171 pregnant women identified

Maternal, Neonatal and Child Health (rural)

1,330,600 pregnant women identified in 4 districts

1,142,498 received ante-natal care

38,589 women delivered at clinic/hospital

163,478 neonates received home care

Human Resources for Health

15,176 shastho shebikas trained

6,561,892 patients treated by shebikas

Tuberculosis Control

86 million people covered in 42 districts

96,427cases diagnosed

64,305 patients cured

Health Centres (Shushasthyas)

31centres established

99,026 patients treated

Reading Glasses

5 million covered in 5 districts

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

stories of 2009 revisited in 2021

 I am not sure if you are currently in same part of los angeles - a city I dont really know. STORY OF FAST COMPANY ROW & ABED SOCIAL BUSINESS COLLAB UNIVERSITY VINCENT> I met heath in boston 2003? while he was still the main connector at alan webbers fast company magazine. At that time at least 3 fascinating things : fast company organised 200 evening conversation clubs in big cities on social capital - 100 internationally; i populated london's (this was before a dismal thing called impact hub started in islington and bred 80 messes across the world); fast company offered insights whenever harvard mindset monopoly was wrong or at least behind von neumann's curve of 100 times more tech per decade to humanise ai with https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/ai-neumann-top-100-humansai-2022-chris-macrae-ma-damtp-cantab/?published=t ; in an age when founders still published email at bottom of articles it helped connect startups; I expect it did a lot more but that was great ; i bumped into webber after he had sold fast company; there was in 2008/9 12 months when smith school of business at UMD was very entrepreneurial thanks to a lady called mellissa carrier; she tried to launch social business entrepreneurship- weber was a keynote speaker; I made a huge mistake; i told him dr yunus (who i had arranged european tours for including day british banks failed  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klUu03EMeRs  ) was organising a global socail business summit; i next met   webber moderating this out of berlin in 2009.. that year I had organised yunus 69th birthday bringing from london the bbc's number 2 on nature and friend of prince charles www.ashden.org - all hell broke loose in summer 2009 dhaka as the end game of yunus owning grameen versus sheikh hasina's hatred of him had begun; yunus used berlin that fall to pretend he was ever stronger as a worldwide sustainability economist and partner; at that same 69th birthday party i had invited the founder of brac bank and a brand consultant tania zaman who was redoing fazle abed's brand; thats where i discovered fazle abed was the person every sustainability millennial most needed to understand. abed's last act before cancer killed him was to headhunt vincent from shenzen-hk university system; vincent has at least 3 doctorate or postdoctorates from mit berkeley yale as well as sillicon valley entrepreneurial success; although abed had threaded the world's largest sustainable partnerships in civil society (transforming ng world) he didnt have time to hand tehse over to vincent in the context of uniting 100 universities whose graduates need to shape the sustainbility generation over the next few years- sorry if thats a long conversation starter but I hope you do (converse) happy safe 2022  ps ironically george soros tremendously helped yunus in 1996 starting village phones and abed from 2007 ; although the main partner in 100 sdg graduates network from the west is supposed to be soros colleges and people like malloch brown who edited the 2000 millennium goals- adminstrators around soros have got caught up in the wrong end of every activist stick (imo) instead of getting on with last mile health which was the reason soros valued abed more than any other societal leader among asia's two thirds of humanity   - i strongly recommend this space as 10 times smarter than linkedin https://lunchclub.com/member/50a1a6657a07

chris bethesda md +1 240 316 8157