BRAC, a leading international development
organization founded in Bangladesh announced that it has successfully raised $62.6 million of debt capital to provide microfinance
loans to poor borrowers in Tanzania, Uganda and Southern Sudan. The BRAC Africa Loan Fund provides long-term, local-currency
funding that will enable BRAC to scale up its microfinance operations to reach over 700,000 borrowers through over 200 branches
across the three countries. The Fund represents the largest single financing to date of a southern hemisphere development
organization expanding into Africa.
The Fund will aggregate US dollar loans from investors through a special purpose
company and use the capital to make local currency loans to BRAC Uganda, BRAC Tanzania and BRAC Southern Sudan over a period of seven years. A second and final closing is planned during the first half of 2009 to reach the Fund’s
target of $74.0 million.
1 Uganda April 09: BRAC Uganda has emerged as the largest NGO in the country, employing close to 1400 staff, 97% of them being Ugandan. Mr.
Islam also explained how BRAC Uganda currently operates 123 offices in 37 districts across the country, impacting the lives
of half a million people. more refs 1 2 3 4
About BRAC Tanzania:
In June 2006, BRAC began operating its Microfinance Program in three regions in Tanzania - Dar-es-salam,
Arusha and Coast. In the past year, approximately USD 4 million in loans has been distributed through this program. The microfinance
program includes outreach and services at the village level and is specifically focused on women. BRAC leveraged this organization
capital to develop extension service cadre in health, agriculture and livestock initiatives. Currently, there are over 350
BRAC staff members working in Tanzania.
Click here to read BRAC Tanzania's 2008 Annual Report (pdf)
Microfinance Program
Established in June 2006 and has undergone major expansion since January
2007
Operates 41 branches in seven districts
Organized 1,481 groups
Mobilized 39,513 members; 25,518 of whom
have borrowed
Disbursed over USD 4 million in loans
Employed 40 branch managers and 164 community organizers
Health Program
Established in January 2007
Operates 20 branches
Mobilized 26,210
community members to participate in health education
Trained 200 CHVs
Agriculture Program
Established in January 2007
Operates 15 branches
Distributed 48,625 kg in seeds
Trained 243 model farmers
and extension workers
Serves 1,448 general farmers
Poultry and Livestock Program
Established
in January 2007
Operates 20 branches
Trained 200 volunteers
Employed 350 staff members (95 percent are Tanzanian
and over 95 percent are local women)
Signed an agreement with the Government of Tanzania’s relevant ministries
to ensure adequate vaccination supply
Sierra Leone April 09: BRAC Sierra Leone has now set up 10 microfinance branches and launched its health, agriculture and livestock programs
S.Sudan March 2009: BRAC currently operates 17 microfinance branches in the country, reaching 14,000 members and is piloting initiatives in
livelihoods, health and education.
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Tune in to ABC Friday, Dec. 16, at 10 pm (EST) for a "20/20" special with Diane Sawyer featuring BRAC – and Rina, a new mother who lives in a slum in Bangladesh.
Bearing a child should be the happiest day of a woman life – but too often, for reasons that are entirely preventable, it ends in the death of the mother, the child, or both. BRAC has figured out a low-cost yet ingenious solution for reducing pregnancy risk, reaching 24.5 million people in the process. That's the population of the state of Texas.
In “Making Life: A Risky Proposition,” an hour-long report on challenges faced by mothers in developing countries, ABC News travels to the slums of Dhaka, seeing our work in action – including a visit to a BRAC birthing hut to welcome the new arrival of Rina's healthy baby boy. The report is part of ABC News's Million Moms Challenge.
Show your support today by "liking" the Million Moms Challenge on Facebook. If they reach 100,000 likes by noon today, Johnson & Johnson will donate $100,000 to the cause – so please like
and share with your Facebook friends!
We’re making a real difference, and we believe we can multiply our
efforts by spreading the BRAC approach worldwide. So tune into ABC on Friday and help us spread the good news!
please mail chris.macrae@yahoo.co.uk bookmarks to great articles on BRAC 1
For those who want to sustain future generations, friends in DC, I (+93 congressmen) would recommend an adventure
learning tour to 3 destinations. Fortunately, two of these are within walking distance of each other (Third is a hemisphere
away in Africa, but they know each other well and thanks to death of distance are microeconomics map around your entrepreneurial and open source world as the most productive and collaborative triad ). For the sake of transparency, YES I feel I have some friends in one of these places, but this is a web about the place I haven't yet visited. Ian Smilie's new book starts its guided tour like this . Chris
Macrae DC Bureau of microcredit.tv 301 881 1655, chris.macrae AT yahoo.co.uk
suggestions for editing bracase welcome - chris.macrae@yahoo.co.uk
This is a friends web -official
webs of BRAC are http://www.brac.net/ http://www.bracuniversity.net/ http://www.bracbank.com/ http://www.bracusa.org/ http://www.youtube.com/user/bracusa1
I have spent 30 years surveying how purposefully organisations sustain their workers missions. BRAC and Grameen
are off the scale compared with any large organisation I have researched - and I have surveyed more that half of the world's
most famous global 100 brands.
We hope we have found a way to share with youth around the world the exciting intrapreneurial energy that Grameen http://grameen.tv/ generates day in day out
Muhammad Yunus & Grameen Bank
| Fazle Hasan Abed Founder and Chairperson, BRAC Fazle Hasan Abed is the Founder and Chairperson of BRAC, one of the largest non-governmental organizations in the world with over 100,000 staff members and an annual budget of $430 million. BRAC’s micro-finance program has 6.37 million borrowers and has cumulatively disbursed more than $4 billion. More than a million children are enrolled in BRAC schools and more than 3.67 million have graduated. BRAC’s health program reaches more than 100 million people. BRAC has, in recent years, taken its range of development interventions to Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Uganda and Southern Sudan. Abed has been recognized through a number of awards, including UNICEF’s Maurice Pate Award, the Olof Palme Prize, Schwab Foundation’s Social Entrepreneurship Award, the Gates Award for Global Health, UNDP’s Mahbub-ul-Haq Award, and the Henry R. Kravis Prize in Leadership. |
If
anyone has ideas how we can do something similar for BRAC, I'd love to hear of them
Chris Macrae Washington DC bureau
us tel 301 881 1655 info@worldcitizen.tv
The Worldwide Importance of BRAC & GRAMEEN
| .The entrepreneurial leaders and co-wrkers of BRAC and Grameen have demonstrated that poverty is not the fault of people , women and children but a failed system. It is inhuman for a child to be born into a place where it has 20% chance of dying before the age of 5 due to villages not having local nurses. BRAC's first solution in the 1970s was oral rehydration - a service that village nurses needed to provide when babies had diarrhea. Its inhuman for children to have no access to primary education - BRAC's second main service requiring a teacher in every rural area. Grameen completed this hi-trust local triangle by providing a banker in every community empowering women with credit and peer to peer support to start small entrepreneurial businesses | Until the internet's technology, the world's people and their productive lifetimes had been more separated by the geography of where they lived than interconnected. My father, one of the West's leading microeconomists clarified in 1984 how one generation (1984-2024) would become worldwide connected for the first time. This is the greatest system change ever to hit one generation of the human race. System change can always spiral one of two extremely opposite compound consequences not something in between. It was clear in 1984 that if the 21st Century is to be the best of times for all peoples on this planet then we must share life-critical knowhow in non-zero sum ways, end poverty by bridging digital divides. The millennial goals provide a pretty clear map of what ending extreme poverty simultaneously around the world entails | .In July 07 within weeks of becoming UK Prime Minster Gordon Brown give a very clear storyline "people power" of what our institutions have not yet started to transform towards if millennial goals are to be met and local communities are to have an equitable opportunity of being integrated into globalisation. He updated this a little over a year later at Clinton Global Initiative - at a time where fellow keynote speakers -Obama and Mccain - both deplored the excesses of global top-down systems such as wall Street's failed banks - and pledged they would commit America to returning to millennial goals. Ironically, there's a lot every nation can learn from ensuring that communities have banks investing in local people's ability to generate jobs. We are at a stage in human history where the kinds of jobs of the future are changing just as fast as when the industrial revolution emerged. But this time it is pure manufacturing jobs that are disappearing. Brown was correct in visioning an age where government should not promise anyone that their old jobs are safe but should be promising people structures in which everyone has access to developing new jobs. In the midst of this families and children in any civilized place need the same rights that BRAC and Grameen have pioneered :n channeling local medical support, local teachers, local bankers, connection to the worldwide, collaboration spaces in which people peer to peer learn vocational skills. | . In this tv interview, Clinton explains how the micro sustainability investment networks that have emerged in Bangladesh primarily because of the leadership examples and micro-entrepreneurial facilitation structured designed by Grameen and BRAC provide a benchmark for developing nations in our internetworked local to global economy. They have transparently distributed what top-down government and mass media could not equitably empower. For 30 years now, Grameen and BRAC have modeled themselves round social busienss constitutions. These are the opposite how the traditional charity dollar is spent and then needs to fundraise all over again. The social busienss dollar endlessly recycles its investment in an organization’s service purpose. It does this by insisting people entrepreneurially attend to a positive cashflow but reinvest that back inside the community. The safest way to ensure that owners have no conflict with such continuous reinvestment in development is to constitute the organization as owned by the poorest in the community. While Grameen's origin has been to focus on areas where people could serve each other whilst generating income, the origin of BRAC was, in effect, micro-privatization - doing a better job for the poorest communities with public funds than a bureaucratic or corrupt government. BRAC's Fazel Abed has probably innovated more reliable service franchises around vital needs than anyone alive today. Whereas Grameen's leadership team around Muhammad Yunus has serially introduced the most extraordinary entrepreneurial revolutions. Each of microcredit , micromobile and micro-energy involved planting a long-term investment exponential but one that literally took rural economies to a higher future level - a pathway not just to ending poverty but leaping sufficiently far ahead that even cyclical natural disasters would not push the next generation back under the poverty line There is an opportunity for egovernment to make this openness and representation of cultures that unite round the golden rule of all major religions. Do unto others what you would wish done unto you. | . Today national strategic dialogues co-chaired by leaders like Abed and Yunus make fascinating reading. In effect, Bangladesh has become the country par excellence in developing sustainable community franchises that end poverty and its boundary environmental challenges. It is evident that its fast growing neighbours India and China will need these services just as much as Bangladesh. The world in effect is finding that Bangladesh is the number 1 exporter of solutions that accelerate accomplishment of millennial goals everywhere as well as developing the sorts of entrepreneurial and job-creating education that all future children need. Educators have spotted that the schooling system the west built has its design origins in western empire's ancient industrial needs, when it was assumed that a few per cent would be promoted to a command and control top, and schools would sift out the vast majority as not talented enough to have their competences invested in. This is the ultimate challenge that the whole world needs change if we are to honor every child's potential from the day she or he is born. If we fully understand the benchmarks that BRAC and Grameen offer us by partnering grassroots networks such as theirs in Future Capitalism, then today's adult generation may yet hand on the best of times to all our future chldrens. Ultimately children are the deepest sustainability investment and a very micro one. Not the sort of flow that macro institutions like Wall Street banks ever got close to appreciating. We need new economic maps. Ones that worldwide networkers can collaboratively search out if mass media puts on reality program in which youth the world over wants to be "The Apprentice" of community entrepreneurs like Abed and Yunus and the 100000 Bangladeshi's+ they have inspired to be community facilitators of microentrepreneurship. |
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Saturday, June 25, 2011
Sunday, September 27, 2009 Global Alliance for Banking on Values commit to support $2 billion lending expansionNEW YORK, Sept. 25 /PRNewswire/ -- A new network of growing, crisis-resistant, sustainable banks has announced an ambitious commitment to support the expansion of $2 billion in lending to underserved communities and green projects around the world.The Global Alliance for Banking on Values made the announcement at the Clinton Global Initiative in New York this month. The independent network of eleven of the world's leading sustainable banks - who serve over 7 million customers, in 20 countries, with a combined balance sheet of over $14 billion - was launched earlier this year in the Netherlands. According to its Chair, it already has concrete proposals to start making a major impact.he Global Alliance for Banking on Values consists of the following members:Alternative Bank ABS, Switzerland, www.abs.ch Banca Popolare Etica, Italy, www.bancaetica.com Banex, Banco del Exito, Nicaragua, www.banex.com.ni BRAC Bank and BRAC Microfinance Programme, Bangladesh, www.brac.net andwww.bracbank.com GLS Bank, Germany, www.gls.de Merkur Bank, Denmark, www.merkurbank.dk Mibanco, Banco de la Microempresa, Peru, www.mibanco.com.pe New Resource Bank, United States, www.newresourcebank.com ShoreBank Corporation, United States, www.shorebankcorp.com Triodos Bank, The Netherlands, www.triodos.com XacBank, Mongolia, www.xacbank.comTo qualify for membership, each institution has to meet three criteria: - They are independent and licensed banks with a focus on retail customers; - with a minimum balance sheet of $100 million - and, most significantly, they should be committed to responsible financing and the triple bottom line of people, planet and profit.Please, view the website of the Dutch Royal House for the speech of Princess Máxima. Wednesday, August 19, 2009 BRAC leads anti-poverty effort in post-conflict countries http://www.brac.net/index.php?nid=438 NEW YORK, July 22, 2009 - BRAC is leading a $15 million initiative to rebuild war-torn communities in West Africa, four organisations supporting the effort announced today. The Soros Economic Development Fund, Open Society Initiative for West Africa, Omidyar Network, and Humanity United are funding this groundbreaking initiative to support families and prevent renewed conflict. "This investment in the people of West Africa comes at a critical time," said Stewart Paperin, president of the Soros Economic Development Fund. "With their countries emerging from devastating civil wars, this support gives people the tools to rebuild." BRAC, one of the world's largest anti-poverty groups, is providing microfinance, health, and agricultural support in Sierra Leone and Liberia. It anticipates that over 500,000 people will benefit from these programmes. "In the face of overwhelming need, BRAC's work has real potential to create opportunities for hundreds of thousands of families to stabilise their lives and build for the future," said Matt Bannick, managing partner of Omidyar Network. "Our investment will help catalyse this economic and social impact." Since March, BRAC has opened 20 new microfinance branches in Sierra Leone and Liberia and will add 20 more by the end of the year. BRAC made its first loans in June. Over the next two years, it will provide financial services to tens of thousands of women, as well as agricultural supplies and training to small crop and livestock farmers. BRAC will also prepare four hundred community based health volunteers to provide ongoing essential healthcare and help fight deadly diseases like malaria, tuberculosis, and cholera. "People desperately need to earn a living," said Fazle Hasan Abed, founder and chairperson of BRAC. "Despite the many challenges these countries face, Liberia and Sierra Leone are uniquely positioned to become models for successful development in West Africa. We are committed to providing training and resources so that the poor, especially women, can unleash their capabilities as entrepreneurs and improve their livelihoods." BRAC's work in Sierra Leone and Liberia is being funded through a combination of grants and equity, and BRAC is negotiating additional debt capital to finance the loan portfolio. This two-year pilot programme will help BRAC build a long-term sustainable strategy for integrated development in Sierra Leone and Liberia. http://brac.tv please help us track how BRAC is changing africa Friday, May 15, 2009 headline stats from new book on brac
Help us with worldwide brand seeding of 5000 youth goodwill ambassador network uniting bangladesh and worldwide mapmakers of microeconomics, social business entrepreneur networking and future capitalism's sustainability investments -next project meeting all day+1 birthday party with dr yunus , dhaka, 29 June 2009 - help us track the best for the world news that brac and grameen are helping peoples celebrate- spring 09.1 IDCOL to Produce Solar Panels in Bangladesh Energy Bangla - Apr 24, 2009 The IDCOL CEO said the programme is being implemented through 15 partner organisations (POs)
-- Grameen Shakti, BRAC Foundation, Srizony Bangladesh, ...
Freedom From Want: The Remarkable Success Story of BRAC, The Global Grassroots Organization that’s Winning the Fight Against Poverty April 2009 / 304 pages / Paperback / 978-1-56549-294-3 / $24.95 mapmaker's data from the book's freedom chapters coming soon Freedom C0 & C2
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8:30 am edt From BRAC's earliest dev plans in 1972, the idea was to make entire adult populations of villages literate. However BRAC soon learned that education was about far more than schools and etachers. Functional education soon emerged as an underlying fundamental in BRAC's organising principles. The first step in enetring a village was to identify households in BRAC;s target group of the poorest adults. Ater a few weeks several programs for men and women would form- while a saving group might be one of these, the basic platform on which everything was built wss functinal education. Fazle Abed devoured writings from 3 educational practitioners with the poorests: Paulo Freire, Franz Fanon, and Ivan Illich There were 2 parts to the functional education course that emerged in the 1970s. The first part delivered in 30 sessions was about awareness, helping villagers to analyse their environment ,their relationships and dependencies, and the consrants and possibilities in their lives. The objectve was to build a sense of solidarity and group cohesion, create a savings mentality, and prepare people for income generating projects and other activities that would come with time. The seconf part was about literacy and numeracy also taught in 30 courses that were 3 hours each. In the early 1980s the literacrynumeracy course became optional as literacy for its own sake was not alwayys found to be useful. BRAC was soon asked waht it could do for children. From 1974 it started publishing a monthly childrens magazine with stories particularly on health and social issues. By 1981 this was being distributed to all of the states 40000+ primary schools. BRAC soon decided it needed to experiment with informal one-toom primary schools in the village. Its 1985 experiment began with 22 1-room schools. .. Ten years later, BRAC had opened 19000 schools and had graduated more than 500,000 chldren. Update from BRAC blog march 09 :BRAC has more than 54,000 primary and pre-primary schools in Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Uganda and Southern Sudan, and will be implementing a pilot primary school program in Pakistan this year. Click here to learn more about BRAC's education programs Freedom C15
8:30 am edt Freedom C16 BRAC UNIVERSITY
8:30 am edt University Revolution - I will make a guess that by 2020 if Yes We Can youth have got the lanet spinning back on track for sustainability that half of the top 10 universities will have been all but unknown in 2009; the simplest course that 7 billion people need to regain sustainability doesn't need 1000 expert professors variations; and its cases will be there to go and visit; I have no doubt that BRAC University will be a world favourite - note how fast its grownn and gravitates sustainability's most caring systems people from 2008 BRAC annual report  Freedom C17
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