if you asked sir fazle of all the global agencies headquartered in usa, whos partnership did he treasure most- i am pretty sure he would say unicef during the james grant years
anyway when abed started brac university in 2001, james grant school of public health was identified as the first word class college- and pretty muck anyone who cared about womens health was invited to give a guest lecture or to nominate a reseatch area
it was james and abed with help from chinese american friends who first scaled oral rehydration across bangladesh and tropical china earning a reciprocation from china on all barefoot medial knowhow
then they repeated the trick on vaccination reaching through a billion rural mothers
-abed had many reasons gfor starting up a university- i like to think him of being 5 years into blefing tech psrtnerships after 25 years of asking potential parters to conect with metavillages cut off from electricity grids and landline telecoms; the opportunity to leapfrog came to bangladesh with mobile and solar in bracs case bracnet partners from hapanese silicon valley venture funds -so on the one hand brac university aimed to become a national university that inspited graduates to be great public servants or village entreprenurs- abed was determined asia could connect 100 sustainability universities sharing alumni and action learing networks - each university should have solutions benefitting at least 50 million people
he planted at least 3 networks that would make brac university live up to 50 million - james grant college- worldwide parterships in ultra [overty, worldwide partnerships in early childhood playschools...
and yet of course there was much more to be done- could bagladesh get sanitation infrastructure right- how on earyth could dhaka ever be turned into a benchmark asian megacity- its already one of the largest but having been blocked out of trading routes its not yet been a partner in the big opportunity of asi rising linking in win-wi megacities and superports - and for a family that once enjoyed connecting world trade our of calcutta but then were partitioned to a geography with no superportt and hostile land nieigbors- brac university and bracnet willo certainly needed to play the blended game of hi-tech, deep love communities in uniquely brilliant ways - but then if you know bangladesh mothers 3 generations into brac empowrment nothing's impossinle
health infrastructure's hidden agenda of sanitation
in poorest countries sanitation isnt a hidden agenda but rich country's advanced infrastructure make their sanitation experts (with tech galore) all but clueless in poorest countries unless demonstrable otherwise
we put sanitation in 3.6 james grant public health college partnerships the poorest need solutions to while recognising pit latrines have been a village solution from the start of village-brac ; this update on microfinance and sanitation offers one insight- the amount of work brac has done on WASH parnterships is huge- as 2020s publics wtalk about how will climate impact bangladesh's expected transition to 50% urban, keep asking about sanitation
one of the most ambitious partnership projects in asia we've been tracking is over indnesia where world bank and aiib lent a billion dollars to end slums
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