01 - BRAC

2013-01-09T19:56:15Z

The Agile Giant of the Development World

HQ Location: Bangladesh

After landing at a more than respectable fourth place in our inaugural Top 100 NGOs ranking, BRAC (formerly the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee) – the largest non government development organization on the planet – has claimed this year’s top spot. A member of the era defining 1970s wave of Bangladeshi microcredit and microfinance pioneers alongside the Grameen Bank and ASA, BRAC has since gone on to outpace its old counterparts and assume an unparalleled position in the crowded field of international development.

From the perspective of our ranking criteria – impact, innovation and sustainability – BRAC ticks every box. While still involved in the microfinance space – to the tune of approximately $9 billion – the organization has carefully, but steadily, diversified into a wide suite of activities, from agriculture and food security to education, legal aid, climate change risk reduction, livelihoods support and maternal and child health. Rather than spreading BRAC’s resources too thin, this strategy has instead remained faithful to founder Sir Fazle Hasan Abed’s vision of a holistic, sustainable approach to poverty reduction. Indeed, BRAC is in a unique position to use its microfinance base as a social platform to deliver innovative scaled up services aligned to a principled, rights-based philosophy.

As we noted last year, BRAC is in many ways a microcosm of the entire international development sector in one organization, albeit gaining in independence from donor influence each year as it covers almost 80 percent of its $572 million operating budget through a burgeoning portfolio of catalytic social enterprises – a clear trend positioning the organization in an enviable position of financial and programmatic sustainability. Yet rather than taking this as a cue to rest on its laurels, BRAC has at the same time used its considerable resources and in-house human capital to build an expansive and dedicated monitoring and evaluation apparatus, with positive flow on effects for the entire sector.

Ultimately, BRAC has evolved into a giant of an NGO in a way that some could see as problematic – a non-public entity that touches the lives of more than 126 million people. Reassuringly, however, while size is not often an indication of quality, BRAC represents a welcome outlier and a continuing force for good at the global level.

To read more about the Top NGOs rankings click here.

#04 - BRAC

2012-01-23T11:05:15Z

Check out if BRAC is in the Top 100 NGOs 2013 Edition!

Leveraging scale to deliver deep impact.

Over 110 million beneficiaries.

Size is not necessarily a reflection of quality. To focus on the fact that BRAC (formerly the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee) has grown into the world’s ‘largest development organization’, therefore, is to miss the real story of this enterprise’s remarkable leadership in the fight against global poverty.

Established by former Shell Oil executive Sir Fazle Hasan Abed in 1972 soon after the independence of Bangladesh, BRAC was part of an influential wave of organizations – alongside the Grameen Bank and ASA – that went on to revolutionize development strategies not only in their home countries, but across the world. Unlike its counterparts, however, which focused on refining and expanding their pioneering micro-credit and micro-finance models, BRAC also added a range of social programs to the mix and has continued to diversify and leverage its unique ability to achieve economies of scale over time.

While still involved in micro-finance activities – indeed, having issued approximately $5 billion in micro-loans to date – BRAC reaches more than 110 million people with its holistic, sustainable approach to poverty reduction that uses these micro-finance groups as a social platform to deliver scaled-up services in health, education, business development and livelihood support. Moreover, the organization has expanded its model into nine other countries in Asia, Africa and the Caribbean.

Currently doing everything from training door-to-door health volunteers, to implementing a mobile health project whereby volunteers can share real-time information about their patients, to running 32,000 informal ‘BRAC Schools’, and giving almost 7 million people access to sanitary latrines, BRAC is in many ways a microcosm of the entire international development sector in one organization. Unlike most of its overseas counterparts, however, BRAC covers almost 80 percent of its $485 million budget through a number of social enterprises, including a dairy project, a chain of retail handicraft stores, a pioneering poultry venture and commercial fish farming.

At the same time – realizing that massive scale also means ample scope for inefficiencies and wastage – BRAC has emerged as a leader in program monitoring and evaluation. The organization has established a standalone Research and Evaluation Division that collaborates with academic and research institutions and other development organizations to gauge the effectiveness of its interventions.

Looking ahead, BRAC is preparing to shift its focus towards city-based schemes in anticipation of the projected one-third growth in Bangladesh’s population over the next five years.

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01 - BRAC

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