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BRAC in Uganda awarded Best Visionary Microfinance Bank 2017
BRAC in Uganda, the country’s largest non-governmental development organisation, has been honoured as the Best Visionary Microfinance Bank 2017. The 5th Visionaries of Uganda Awards ceremony was held at the Kampala Serena Hotel on December 7, 2017.
The award was given to BRAC by the People of the Republic of Uganda for their outstanding contribution towards Uganda’s middle income status aspiration 2020 and Vision 2040, in a ceremony presided over by His Excellency, Edward Ssekandi Kiwanuka, the Vice President of the Republic of Uganda.
The Visionary of Uganda Awards was launched in 2013 by His Excellency Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, the President of the Republic of Uganda, to award institutions and organisations that contribute towards the social economic transformation of Uganda.
The awards were sponsored by various institutions including the National Planning Authority, Ministry of Agriculture, Mediciens Frontieres and Compuscan CRB Limited. The awards drew over 40 participants including both private and government organisations covering sectors such as health, education, agriculture, microfinance and banking.
BRAC in Uganda provides access to finance and livelihood development services to small entrepreneurs through small enterprise loans. These loans enable them to expand their businesses. These awards are confirmation that alongside growth, BRAC is putting emphasis on providing microfinance solutions to shape and uplift Uganda’s economy.
LANSA-BRAC joint study reveals
Crop diversification have positive impact on nutritional intake
Crop diversification helps increase the intake of nutritious food by giving households more options in food items to choose from. A study, conducted from 2010-11 to 2014-15, reveals that underweight population among the participant community reduced by 4.5 per cent over this period.
The findings further show that over the study period normal weight population among the participating households increased by 2.3 per cent. Also underweight male population reduced by 4.4 per cent, while female population of the same category reduced by 5.3 per cent.
‘Econometric analysis revealed that crop diversity level has direct influence on dietary diversity and, thereby, on the nutritional status of the individual,’ the study concludes.
International research body Leveraging Agriculture for Nutrition in South Asia (LANSA) and development organisation BRAC conducted the study titled ‘Crop diversity, dietary diversity and nutritional outcome in rural Bangladesh: Evidence from panel households’ with 500 participating households in 12 villages of 11 districts across the country.
LANSA-BRAC consultant Dr Uttam Kumar Deb and BRAC’s Research and Evaluation Division (RED) director Professor Abdul Bayes led the study.
The findings of the study were presented at a seminar styled ‘Leveraging agriculture for nutrition in Bangladesh’ today on Tuesday (12 December 2017) at the BRAC Centre in the Dhaka city. The event was supported by UK AID.
Agriculture secretary Md Kaykobad Hossain was present at the seminar as the chief guest, while Professor Abdul Bayes moderated. BRAC Agriculture and Food Security Programme’s head Dr Md Sirajul Islam, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) research analyst Tauseef Salahuddin, and RED senior research fellow Barnali Chakraborty presented three other papers at the event. Agriculture joint secretary Balai Krishna Hazra and WorldFish country director Dr Malcolm Dickson, among others, also spoke at the seminar.
Md Kaykobad Hossain said, ‘It is difficult for Bangladesh to mitigate the challenges including that of increasing the nutritional intake for the 160 million people with limited resources. As a part of its efforts, the government is giving emphasis on distribution of nutritious food items besides rice under its VGD (Vulnerable group development) programme.’
‘Rice cannot fulfil our daily need of food intake. So the government is now motivating the farmers to produce new crop varieties apart from rice,’ he further said.
‘Besides food crop production, we have to increase our focus on building quality storage system,’ added the agriculture secretary.
Professor Abdul Bayes said, ‘It is true that Bangladesh has made better progress in increasing people’s nutritional intake than some of the disadvantaged African nations, but to make further progress our farmers need to reduce their dependence on rice cultivation.’
Professor Bayes in his presentation pointed out that during the study period, 99 per cent of the farmland was under rice cultivation throughout the monsoon, which changed outside the rainy season to bring more than 45 per cent of farmland under non-rice crops.
The community in the study area, however, generally manifested a positive trend towards cultivating varieties of crops. Households with larger farms and comparatively better institutional education showed more interest about crop diversification.
The speakers also warned that an upward trend of gaining weight in a section of the community is also evident from the study. During the study period, overweight population increased in the participant households by 1.9 per cent with overweight male population increased from 3.9 per cent to 5.6 per cent and female population increased from 9.3 per cent to 11.3 per cent. During the same period, obese population increased from 0.9 per cent to 1.2 per cent with obese male population increased by 0.5 per cent and female population increased from 1.3 per cent to 2 per cent.
Summaries from three more research work were also presented at the seminar. Dr Md Sirajul Islam presented the paper titled ‘A study on milk value chain for the poor in Bangladesh’. Barnali Chakraborty’s paper was titled ‘A capability approach to child nutrition: Parents’ stories in context of haor’, while Tauseef Salahuddin presented a paper styled ‘Dietary patterns in rural Bangladesh: What influence of agriculture?’
BRAC's statement on news published
BRAC's attention has been drawn to the news published by some media houses, alleging that the Government of Pakistan has ordered closure of BRAC's development operations in that country. While this news is not based on any fact, the statement below will explain the real situation on this issue.
BRAC has been implementing development programmes in Pakistan since 2007 under the entity 'BRAC Pakistan' which is locally registered. Recently, BRAC undertook an initiative to register an international development entity called 'BRAC International' to operate in that country. Accordingly, an application was filed with the Pakistani ministry concerned. The ministry, however, rejected the application, while advising to resubmit papers within 90 days for reappraisal.
In this context, the development programmes being run by BRAC Pakistan have no connection with the application for registration of BRAC International or the process involving it.
We, therefore, clearly state that the news published alleging the suspension or closure of BRAC programmes in Pakistan is entirely baseless.
Growing number of women take to the driving seat
Women usually do not drive as rashly as their male counterparts
The number of women driving, in both professional and non-professional capacity, is quickly increasing as employers feel more secure with them.
Brac Driving School in Dhaka has taken up initiatives to train women as drivers for free, who then go on to get jobs different NGOs, other organisations and privately-owned vehicles.
Many women are stepping into the world of driving both as a necessity and as a hobby, said Traffic Police officials, adding that women tend to drive carefully on the road.
Sir Fazle Hasan Abed receives the Laudato Si’ Award
Sir Fazle Hasan Abed, Founder and Chairperson of BRAC, one of the world’s leading non-governmental organisations, has received the prestigious Laudato Si award during a ceremony at the Vatican City. The award recognises BRAC for its innovative approach to creating opportunities for millions of people living in poverty, achieving significant impact in Bangladesh and ten other countries.
BRAC was founded in Bangladesh in 1972 by Sir Fazle Hasan Abed, and today is a global leader in developing cost-effective, evidence-based poverty innovations in extremely poor, conflict-prone and post-disaster settings. These include programmes in education, healthcare, microfinance, girls’ empowerment, agriculture, human and legal rights, social enterprises, a bank, a university, and the world’s largest mobile money platform. The organisation is known for its business approach to helping people in poverty, with 16 socially-minded businesses that enable the most marginalised people to access financial services and livelihoods. In addition, BRAC’s celebrated graduation programme helps the poor ‘graduate’ out of destitution, resulting in an income boost of up to 37 percent. Research has shown that it has the potential to help achieve Sustainable Development Goal 1 by uplifting the poorest people and eradicating the most severe forms of poverty.
Laudato Si’
In 2015, Pope Francis wrote “Laudato Si’ meaning, “On care for our common home,” in which he calls for an international dialogue about how to approach and act upon an ecological crisis. In essence he explains that caring for our common home, and bettering our communities, means also addressing how international business practices have contributed to climate change, which effects the most marginalised people. The Laudato Si’ Challenge 2017 is developing and accelerating transformative, scalable, profitable businesses that have solutions to the most intractable problem of our time: climate change and human migration.
As part of the inaugural challenge, The Laudato Si’ awards recognise the innovators whose contributions are uniting humanity and transforming the way we approach impact and enterprise. The Laudato Si’ awards are a set of three prizes honouring those who are committed to answering Pope Francis’s clarion call. Other award winners include Huda Abuarquob in the individual category and Sarara Camp in the enterprise category.
Sir Fazle expressed his gratitude for the award. “Forty-five years ago, I set out to change the conditions of my native Bangladesh permanently, by giving poor people the power to control their own lives and destinies. I founded BRAC based on the belief that poor people, if given the means to organise themselves, can change the course of history.
“We have achieved much, but there is more to be done. For the first time in history, the eradication of extreme poverty from the face of the planet is within our sight. Like His Holiness Pope Francis, I believe that proper care for the planet means proper care for the people who live on it, including the most vulnerable among us. My vision is of a world where even the poorest have the opportunity to lead lives of purpose and dignity.”
BRAC in Sierra Leone awarded the best NGO for Women’s Empowerment
BRAC in Sierra Leone was awarded the ‘Best NGO for Women’s Empowerment' for 2017 by the Council of Chief Executives, a leading association of business leaders in Sierra Leone that is committed to sustainable economic growth and human development.
The award comes in recognition of BRAC’s role in empowering women through its programmes, management systems and innovations.
The award was accepted by the country representative, Rakibul Bari Khan, on behalf of BRAC in Sierra Leone. He described the award as "a great honor and recognition of our determination to empower the lives of women in Sierra Leone. Ultimately, we want to help the country achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, particularly the goal of attaining gender equality." He further noted, "In turn, the empowerment of women will help remove inequality and contribute to the eradication of poverty in all its forms."
80% of BRAC staff in Sierra Leone are women and over half of the programmes are run by women. The Empowerment and Livelihood for Adolescents (ELA) programme is completely run by women while all community health workers under the health programme are women; 95% of microfinance staff and clients are also women.
BRAC opened its offices in Sierra Leone in 2008 and currently reaches 2.3 million people through programmes in health, adolescents’ empowerment, agriculture and microfinance. It follows an integrated approach to development, implementing programmes through 30 branches in 11 districts across the country.
Global Panel policy brief published on achieving SDG
Lack of healthy diet puts more people at risk of death and diseases
Lack of healthy diet puts more people at risk of death and diseases in developing countries than things like air pollution, smoking and drug abuse. It has been reported that as a result of poor nutrition conditions, there was an estimated 11 percent drop in GDP of countries across Africa and Asia.
This, along with other insights, come from the new report on 'Healthy Diets for All: A Key to Meeting the SDGs' that was launched at this year's Global Panel meeting at a hotel on today in the capital. Zahid Malek, MP, Honorable State Minister from the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, was present at the launching as the chief guest.
Panel members at the meeting included the Director of BRAC, Health, Nutrition and Population Programme, Dr Kaosar Afsana, Global Panel member Emmy Simmons, Global Panel Technical Advisor Professor Patrick Webb, Department for International Development (DFID) country director Jane Edmondson were also spoke at the meeting, BRAC, and Global Panel in collaboration with International Food Policy Research Institute and Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition, Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI) hosted this year's meeting in Dhaka on Monday, 20 November, 2017. The central agenda of the meeting was to engage policymakers at all levels and help them recognise the role of healthy diets in achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
The report presented six evidence-based recommendations, aimed at policymakers in low and middle-income counties, showing how 'diet quality' can be the key to help them unlock and accelerate progress on meeting their Sustainable Development Goals.
These six areas of focus include – paying attention to diet quality in developing SDG plans; adopting food systems approach to meet the SDGs; focusing on improved diet for infants, young children and women; addressing barriers and shocks impeding access to healthy diets; widening national policy approach to ensure well-functioning food systems; boosting efforts to collect and report data on diet quality.
Zahid Malek MP stated, "this is a country of 160-170 million people. Despite few natural calamities and man-made disasters, Bangladesh has maintained its sustained economic growth. We are turning from lower middle income to middle income by 2021 or earlier. Even then, 45 million people live in absolute poverty, 40 million are suffering food insecurity, 7.3 million children are stunted, only three-fourths of under two children accessed minimal acceptable diet and 70% of our diets are cereal based."
He emphasized on five points to solve these problems; urge all relevant ministries to act in their own jurisdiction for improved nutrition and healthy diets for all with a multi-sectoral approach, propose a minimal healthy diet affordable to the people, rigorous advocacy and mass campaign for healthy diets, continuous and serious dialogue with commercial markets to make them pro-people, nutrition-sensitive and supportive for healthy population and all stakeholders – government, NGOs, UN and private sectors must work together for community mobilization.
The consensus at the meeting was that one critically important policy area that connects many of the SDGs, is the provision healthy diets for all. Invisible in terms of SDG language and not mentioned among the many targets, healthy diets are a foundation underpinning successful progress toward targets in health, agriculture, inequality, poverty and sustainable consumption.
Initiative to boost awareness on child marriage prevention
Community radios to commence unique two month long campaign.
As part of the efforts to raise awareness on the issue of child marriage, community radios will start communicating a unique campaign from November until December. A total of 17 community radios nationwide will be responsible for disseminating critical information on 11 topics surrounding child marriage in various native languages.
A thought sharing session was held today, titled “Increasing Awareness to Prevent Child Marriages,” at the National Press Club where the campaign announcement was made. The participants at the event included Additional Secretary of the Ministry of Information, Md. Mosharraf Hossain, Programme Coordinator of Gender Justice and Diversity at BRAC, Nishath Sultana, and Director of Community Empowerment Programme, Gender Justice and Diversity, and Integrated Development Programme at BRAC, Anna Minj.
It is revealed through the event that the topics covered by the community radio shows will include: child marriage, father’s role in child marriage, role of teachers and community leaders, community engagement, role of local government, role of social media, role of NGOs, involvement of boys and sexual harassment among others.
The development of the magazine shows, necessary skills building and promotion related activities will be carried out in collaboration among BRAC’s Gender Justice and Diversity and Community Empowerment Programme along with Bangladesh Community Radio Association.
BRAC Vice Chairperson awarded ‘Medical Award of Excellence 2017’
Dr Chowdhury honoured for work in public health globally.
Dr Mushtaque Raza Chowdhury, Vice Chairperson of BRAC, was nominated by the American non-profit Ronald McDonald House Charities for its ‘Medical Award of Excellence 2017’ along with a grant of USD 100,000. The award was given in recognition of Dr Chowdhury’s outstanding contributions in the field of primary health care and community-based education across developing countries. The ceremony was held on 11th November, 2017, in Illinois, U.S.
Among his vast body of achievements, Dr Chowdury is known for leading BRAC’s Oral Therapy Extension Programme that successfully stemmed deaths from childhood diarrhea by training mothers on oral rehydration solution (ORS) preparation. In addition to his role at BRAC, Dr Chowdhury is also the Professor of Population and Family Health at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and has implemented projects in countries like Nepal, Pakistan, Thailand, China and Ethiopia.
Dr Chowdhury has worked as Senior Adviser and acting Managing Director for Health at the Rockefeller Foundation, where he played a critical role in setting up several institutions in the South-East and South Asia regions. These include the establishment of the Department of Public Health and Informatics at Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University, forming the Mekong Basin Disease Surveillance (MBDS) network, and setting up of a center on non-state sector studies in Vietnam.
Past recipients of the Award included former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, Health Minister of Rwanda Dr Agnes Binagwaho and Queen Noor of Jordan among others.
Simple and frugal solutions to scale quality education
BRAC’s executive director, Dr Muhammad Musa said, “For education to be able to serve the future of our communities, we need to empower teachers, methodologies, practitioners and more importantly mindsets, in order to solve real problems with simple, frugal solutions, that include the under-privileged communities of the present world,” today on Saturday at the closing day of a 3-day international event on educational innovations organised at Savar, Dhaka.
Focusing on scaling up quality education, BRAC organised the programme titled ‘Frugal Innovation Forum 2017’ in 9-11 November 2017 at Savar CDM. The first day of the event was spent in the field, while discussions comprising 17 sessions were held in the next two days.
Primary and mass education minister, Advocate Mostafizur Rahman MP inaugurated the discussion sessions on Friday, which primarily focused on the potentials of different kinds of innovations to ensure quality education across the world. Educationists and innovators from Bangladesh, Australia, India, Nepal and South Africa presented 11 innovative models of quality education. Over 200 development activists, social entrepreneurs, educationists and researchers participated in discussions on the innovative approaches and projects adopted in the education systems of different countries around the world.
A special session on the education of refugee children titled ‘The displaced demographic: Classrooms for every child’ was held on the closing day. Abdul Moktader, Project Director, Save the Children Bangladesh; Jacqueline Strecker, Learn Lab Manager, UNHCR, and Mohammad Mohsin, ECD Specialist, UNICEF Bangladesh, were the speakers of the session.
Later on the closing day executive director of BRAC, Dr Muhammad Musa attended a session titled ‘Future of Education’. Dr James Tooley, professor of education policy at the University of Newcastle and Anir Chowdhury, policy adviser to the Access to Information (a2i) Programme at the Prime Minister’s Office, also spoke at this session.
Yesterday’s (10 November 2017) discussions focused on the changing trends in the education systems across the world. Dr Safiqul Islam, director of BRAC’s education programme, Ian Attfield, senior education adviser of DFID Education Policy Team, and Fathima Dada, global managing director of English and Schools, Pearson, were the speakers at this session titled ‘Shifting sands in global education across the world’.
Another important session from the second day called ‘Public private partnership in education - Lessons learnt from the region’ included Aashti Zaidi Hai, director of Global Schools Forum, Lee Crawfurd, head of research and evaluation of Ark Education Partnerships Group, Md Afzal Hossain Sarwar, policy specialist for educational innovation at Access to Information Programme at the Prime Minister’s Office, Bangladesh, and Shweta Anand Arora, director of The Education Alliance, as the speakers.
Asif Saleh, senior director for strategy, communications and empowerment of BRAC and BRAC International, gave the closing remarks of the event.
The BRAC Social Innovation Lab (SIL) has been organising Frugal Innovation Forum for the last four years (since 2013) with focus on pressing social issues. This year, the Bangla daily, Prothom Alo was the associate partner of the event while Global Schools Forum acted as the knowledge partner.
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