'We have played a role in the cultural change of the society'

The 50th anniversary of any institution is a great cause for celebration. BRAC is concluding the year-long celebration with the Hope Festival. What is this hope all about?

For those of us working in development, there is no scope to lose hope. Our founder Sir Fazle Hasan Abed would always tell us that. We always live in hope and want to use the opportunities that come forward. And the source of this hope is the people of Bangladesh. It is true that we have a lot of frustration and disappointments. Our country is small, our population is large and our resources are relatively low. We are all aware that Bangladesh used to rank among the poorest countries in the world. We have emerged out of that. The champions of this success are the people of Bangladesh. Therein lies our hope. Our people are innovative and incredibly hardworking. And even more so, our women.

Many people can't do much simply due to the lack of opportunity. In BRAC's development model, there is no such thing as charity. Instead, we have adopted a policy of investing for people without opportunities. Our task is to ensure the people of the country do not get left behind simply due to the lack of opportunity. They are given certain tools. We have seen that with this support, they strive and change their own fate. These people are the heroes and heroines of our journey over the past 50 years. We can take hope from this. We want to use this spirit to forge ahead. It is with the target of involving everyone in facing these challenges of the future, the youth in particular, that we are organising this Hope Festival. Our people have the capability, they have enviable success. Through this festival we want to share with everyone our hope to advance even further ahead.

Founder of BRAC, Sir Fazle Hasan Abed, would say that hope shines like a bright light when a person realises his or her inner strength. Has that been the mantra of BRAC's 50 year journey?

Not everyone is in the same situation in society. There are certain groups who can work to change their lives around with a little support. But outside of that, there are those whom we identify as ultra-poor. They do not have the confidence that they will be able to change their lives even if they try. Our founder would always pay special attention to this. He felt that if a person's inner strength and self-confidence can be awakened, then change would be possible.

Our strategy regarding this ultra-poor section of people is to first provide these families with resources. This could be a cow, land or poultry. After that, we provide training on how to put these resources to use. We visit their homes every week and offer advice and motivation. Alongside giving them these resources, what we actually do is to make them confident about their own capabilities. Every year we work with 100,000 such families and we have been doing this since 2002. We observe the difference in the family's circumstances before the start of the programme and after. They may think that their fate has changed because they were given a cow or any other resource, but that is not it. The actually matter is that their confidence has been sparked. Our programme is of two years. After that we move away. Armed with their strength and confidence, they continue to turn their lives around even after we move away.

Given Bangladesh's reality, it is quite an achievement for an institution to last for 50 years. BRAC has not only survived, but has expanded and flourished in a multidimensional manner. There must be many reasons behind this, but what do you think is the main factor?

I have worked in many organisations abroad too. In the case of BRAC, what I feel is that here there is always a propensity to push. When our founder was at the helm, he never felt for a moment that BRAC has grown large so let's take some respite, let it carry on in this manner. He continually pushed, never stopping for a moment. Our work is to find solutions to the new social problems that emerge, particularly resolving the problems of the left behind and poor population. One problem is linked with the other. For example, a person may have taken a loan from us, purchased a cow and begins producing milk. Now if there is no market in the village for the milk, if no proper marketing system can be put in place, the milk production will be of no use. In other words, when milk is produced, the new circumstances call for creating a market. To resolve this, we established a dairy. In the same way, we established schools to resolve the problems of education. We established Aarong. All these were endeavours to solve problems. We started the bank to help small enterprises. Then bKash came along for mobile financial services. This continuous effort to resolves the problems that crop up is what takes BRAC ahead, this multidimensional growth continues and keeps the institution relevant.

Then there is an institutional angle. Our founder didn't want the institution to depend on any one person. None of our organisations depend on any single person. Many would wonder what would happen to BRAC when our founder passed away. But he had left BRAC on a strong foundation and so there are no problems. As the aims of the institution are larger than the individual, we can continue along. We have also been able to bring in the right persons with the right sense of values to the various areas of leadership. That too is an important factor of our institution's success.

How is BRAC set apart from other NGOs? NGOs often are synonymous with just relief and microcredit programmes. How far has BRAC managed to change that concept?

Our work is basically rural oriented. That is why many in the cities do not quite understand what we do. We have a lot of work outside of relief and microcredit. For example, BRAC would run 64,000 schools at one point of time. We worked during the Covid outbreak. We played a role when the oral saline campaign started in the eighties. We have worked with family planning. We took initiative to bring women out of their homes. The position where our society stands today didn't happen overnight. We have played a role in cultural change of the society and the society is enjoying the benefits of this.

We see a predominance of western models in the NGOs. In an interview, you had once said that BRAC had brought about a decolonisation of the global development concept. How different is BRAC's development vision or model from that of the West? What problems do you find in the western model?

In the western development model, they have certain prescriptions of their own regarding the solutions to problems. The western NGOs implement these through their local partners. Though these concepts may not quite apply to local realities, the local partners go ahead with these in order to adhere to the donors' conditions and keep them happy. Whether these are effective or not, is not taken into consideration. The aim of the local partners is to spend the funds within time and complete the project. There is no problem to take funds from foreign or western donors, but we must take local realities, our priorities, into consideration when we work.

Also, the western funded assistance is project-based. After three or five years when the project is over, everything is over. There is no follow-up. BRAC does not work with such short-cut ideas and will not do so. Of course, economic independence is an importance factor. No matter what project we take up, it is in keeping with our realities and after testing at a local level. We can say that our projects are all homegrown.

You call BRAC's projects homegrown, but BRAC now works as the development partner with governments of quite a few countries around the world. The socioeconomic realities and culture of each country is different. How do you apply the local Bangladesh model in the context of other countries?

We are very alert about this. For instance, in our Uganda programme, 99 per cent of our workforce is local. In the case of western NGOs, you will note they place their own people in the leadership positions. We try to be strong locally. We apprise them of our experience and approach, they do the rest. In Bangladesh we had started up the one-room school programme, but that is not applicable in Uganda. We have to create a different model there taking their problems into consideration. We set up adolescent clubs there because of the prevalence of early motherhood. That, again, is not relevant for Bangladesh. We believe that all development activities must take local realities into cognizance. That is how we function in other countries.

Bangladesh is supposed to benefit for the prevailing advantage of the youth demographic. But the statistics concerning education and employment of the youth is disheartening. Does BRAC have any specific plan to involve the young population in the development initiatives?

We have many ongoing programmes with youth and we plan to expand these further in the days to come. We started with a vocational training programme, basically for the poor. This was not institution-based, but we gave a formal shape to the master-apprentice training system that exists in our society. That too is a homegrown model. But it was seen that there was extreme frustration among youth in various levels of the society, not just among the poor, regarding employment. A large section of educated youth was emerging from universities and madrasas, from the National University and colleges, but are not getting jobs. Just as there is huge demand for jobs, the demands are different too. There are different demands for English medium students, for Bangla medium, for city students, for rural students and so on.

Alongside vocational training, we have established a centre for digital training too. We have set up a skill development centre. We have made a career hub, which is basically an employment centre. Anyone can register here and evaluate their qualifications. If there are any shortcomings, steps are taken to identify and overcome these. But just one or two months of grooming does not yield results. The deficiencies are glaring. We are realising just how inadequate our education system is.

The problem with our job seekers is that they do not want to work outside certain areas of employment. We are trying to change their mindset so they are ready to do any sort of work. We are evaluating the demands of the applicants and trying to address their shortcomings accordingly. We have more programmes in the pipeline for youth and their employment. We are taking initiative to send skilled workers overseas. We are discussing with Singapore in this regard.

Where do you see BRAC in the next 50 years?

The guidelines for the way ahead are very clear to us. We must always remain very relevant. The society is changing, social problems are changing. We must always take those into consideration and remain up-to-date. I just said that we are giving priority to the problems of youth and we have begun work on that. We are trying new innovations. New problems will crop up. The climate change problems will loom larger. We have to think about how we will tackle these.

People are paying for education and for healthcare, but are not receiving quality healthcare or education. We have to work on this. Urbanisation is increasing, the middle class is expanding, disparity is growing -- we have to think about all this. Our founder would say that equal rights for men and women was his unfinished agenda. Our work in this area will continue, not in the same way but with new strategies. In the Hope Festival we will hold up before the people our various programmes for the days ahead. Our affiliated programmes like BRAC University, BRAC Bank, IPDC continue with innovations. Another area of hope is, BRAC's reach will grow further not only in Bangladesh, but the world over.

Thank you

Thank you too