Sir Fazle Hasan Abed: A Call for Empathy

by Leslie Lytle, Messenger Staff Writer

For the poor to rise out of poverty, “there must be a consensus between the poor and the elite, a functional elite who understand the poor and their needs,” insists Sir Fazle Hasan Abed, founder and chairperson of BRAC, a nonprofit formed in 1972 to aid refugees returning after the Bangladesh war for independence. On Oct. 17, Sir Abed delivered the Founder’s Day address at the University.

In 40 years, Abed’s highly successful and unique approach to ending poverty made BRAC the world’s largest developmental organization with more than six million members, 100,000 employees and an annual budget over $7 million.

Yasmeen Mohiuddin, Sewanee’s Ralph Owen Distinguished Professor of Economics, brought Sir Abed to the attention of the University. Serving as a consultant for the World Food Program, Mohiuddin evaluated BRAC in conjunction with a study that examined vulnerable and disaster-affected populations. Sharing a belief in the effectiveness of microfinance loans to aid the poor, Mohiuddin and Abed went on to collaborate on poverty relief efforts. In 2010, when Mohiuddin founded the Social Entrepreneurship Education program, Sewanee students began visiting Bangladesh to learn about BRAC firsthand.

Born into a prominent family in a region of British India (now part of Bangladesh), Abed became profoundly aware of the frailty of human life in 1970, when a devastating cyclone killed 300,000 Bangladeshis. Abed made survival the top priority when he formed the Bangladesh Rehabilitation Assistance Committee to aid in the refugee relief effort. BRAC addressed basic needs: plows and draft animals for farmers, nets and boats for fisherman, and shelter. BRAC built 10,000 houses in the first year.

Quick to realize that along with a stable food supply, health care and education figured prominently in the equation, Abed made a long-term commitment to end poverty that began with understanding, as he described it, “power relations, who gets what and why, and why some get more.”

As a senior executive and head of finance for Shell Oil Company in the 1960s, Abed learned, “It was possible to be big and still be effective, possible to be responsive to the needs of the staff without being bureaucratic.” Following this model, Abed sent anthropologists and sociologists into village communities to study how poor people behaved and how they perceived famine, sanitation, hygiene and credit.

When developing a relief program, BRAC begins with a limited population, honing its effectiveness and efficiency, and then expands the program to the entire country. In a project to reduce infant mortality by teaching women how to treat diarrhea, the negative attitudes of men impeded the program’s success. BRAC sent workers to meet one-on-one with men in village markets and places where men congregated, successfully turning the tide of negative opinion.

To develop productivity and income in Bangladesh, BRAC functions at times like a business, starting a company to process surplus milk into butter and cheese, and opening a department store to sell handmade garments fashioned by village women.

Evaluating the effectiveness of making microfinance loans to women wanting to start a business but lacking capital, BRAC discovered the “poorest of the poor” didn’t benefit from loans, because they were marginalized and mistrusted in the community. BRAC responded with the “ultra-poor program,” offering participants cash grants, rather than loans, and providing health care and education to reintegrate the grant recipients into village life. BRAC also began making loans to the “missing middle,” those not poor enough for microfinance loans, but not sufficiently financially stable to qualify for bank loans.

Abed started BRAC with the proceeds from the sale of his home in London, earning him the trust of donors. BRAC’s success record soon showed it to be a good investment, and other donors were quick to follow.

Abed is convinced gender equality is key to eradicating poverty. Women have received 100 percent of BRAC’s microfinance loans. But financial assistance is not enough, Abed insists, stressing “the importance of how the elite behave toward those who have less.”

More than 90 percent of children in Bangladesh now attend school, thanks in large parts to BRAC’s efforts. Abed wants to incorporate “empathy training” in education, so the young people BRAC educates will grow up to be a “functional elite” who understand the poor and their needs.

Asked how he would address poverty in the United States, Abed said, “To break the cycle you must start with the children, provide them with a quality education and give them a sense of purpose.”