Fazle Hasan Abed
Encyclopedia
Sir Fazle Hasan Abed, KCMG
is a social worker with dual Bangladesh
i/ British
nationality and the founder and chairman of BRAC
(formerly, Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee). For his outstanding contributions to social improvement, he has received the Ramon Magsaysay Award
, the UNDP Mahbub Ul Haq Award and the inaugural Clinton Global Citizen Award. He was appointed Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George (KCMG) in the 2010 New Year Honours for services in tackling poverty and empowering the poor in Bangladesh and globally.
, in Baniachong, Habiganj District
, Bangladesh
. He passed the matriculation exam from Pabna Zilla School
and went on to complete his higher secondary education from Dhaka College
.
He left home to attend University of Glasgow
, where, and in an effort to break away from tradition and do something radically different - he studied Naval Architecture. But there was little work in ship building in Pakistan
and a career in Naval Architecture
would make returning home difficult. With that in mind, Abed joined the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants
in London
, completing his professional education in 1962.
Abed returned to East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) to join Shell Oil Company
and quickly rose to head its finance division. His time at Shell exposed Abed to the inner workings of a large conglomerate and provided him with insight into corporate management, which would become invaluable to him later in life.
It was during his time at Shell that the devastating cyclone of 1970 hit the eastern coastal regions of the country, killing 300,000 people. The cyclone had a profound effect on Abed - in the face of such devastation, the comforts and perks of a corporate executive's life ceased to have any attraction for him. Together with friends, Abed created HELP, an organization that provided relief and rehabilitation to the worst affected in the island of Manpura, which had lost three quarters of its population in the disaster.
Soon after, Bangladesh’s own struggle for independence from Pakistan began and circumstances forced Abed to leave the country. He found refuge in England, where he set up Action Bangladesh to lobby for his country’s independence with the governments of Europe.
In a span of only three decades, BRAC grew to become the largest development organisation in the world in terms of the scale and diversity of its interventions. As BRAC grew, Abed ensured that it continued to target the landless poor, particularly women, a large percentage of whom live below the poverty line with little or no access to resources or conventional development efforts.
BRAC now operates in more than 69 thousand villages of Bangladesh and covers an estimated 110 million people through its development interventions that range from primary education, essential healthcare, agricultural support and human rights and legal services to microfinance and enterprise development.
In 2002, BRAC went international by taking its range of development interventions to Afghanistan. Since then, BRAC has expanded to a total of eight countries across Asia and Africa, successfully adapting its unique integrated development model across varying geographic and socioeconomic contexts.
Order of St Michael and St George
The Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George is an order of chivalry founded on 28 April 1818 by George, Prince Regent, later George IV of the United Kingdom, while he was acting as Prince Regent for his father, George III....
is a social worker with dual Bangladesh
Bangladesh
Bangladesh , officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh is a sovereign state located in South Asia. It is bordered by India on all sides except for a small border with Burma to the far southeast and by the Bay of Bengal to the south...
i/ British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
nationality and the founder and chairman of BRAC
BRAC (NGO)
BRAC, based in Bangladesh, is the world's largest non-governmental development organization. Established by Sir Fazle Hasan Abed in 1972 soon after the independence of Bangladesh, BRAC is present in all 64 districts of Bangladesh, with over 7 million microfinance group members, 37,500 non-formal...
(formerly, Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee). For his outstanding contributions to social improvement, he has received the Ramon Magsaysay Award
Ramon Magsaysay Award
The Ramon Magsaysay Award is an annual award established to perpetuate former Philippine President Ramon Magsaysay's example of integrity in government, courageous service to the people, and pragmatic idealism within a democratic society. The Ramon Magsaysay Award is often considered Asia's Nobel...
, the UNDP Mahbub Ul Haq Award and the inaugural Clinton Global Citizen Award. He was appointed Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George (KCMG) in the 2010 New Year Honours for services in tackling poverty and empowering the poor in Bangladesh and globally.
Early life
Fazle Hasan Abed was born in 1936 into the esteemed Hasan familyHasan family
The Hasan Family also spelled Hassan, is an esteemed Bangladeshi family, who have contributed exceptionally to South Asian politics and various social movements for nearly four-hundred years. The seat of this Zamindar family is located in Baniachang, Sylhet near the town of Habiganj...
, in Baniachong, Habiganj District
Habiganj District
Habiganj is a district in the north-eastern part of Bangladesh. It is under Sylhet Division.Habiganj is the historical place where the Mukti Bahini started their first guerrilla movement against aggressor Pakistani Army. It is also the place full of memory of Syed Nasir Uddin, an associate of...
, Bangladesh
Bangladesh
Bangladesh , officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh is a sovereign state located in South Asia. It is bordered by India on all sides except for a small border with Burma to the far southeast and by the Bay of Bengal to the south...
. He passed the matriculation exam from Pabna Zilla School
Pabna Zilla School
Pabna Zilla School is the oldest high school in the Pabna District of Bangladesh and one of the top-ranked schools in the country. It provides education from class three to class ten . It has two shifts - morning and day...
and went on to complete his higher secondary education from Dhaka College
Dhaka College
, located in Dhaka, is one of Bangladesh's earliest and most prestigious higher educational institutions. It offers both four years bachelor's and one years masters course in various majors, but it is best known for HSC...
.
He left home to attend University of Glasgow
University of Glasgow
The University of Glasgow is the fourth-oldest university in the English-speaking world and one of Scotland's four ancient universities. Located in Glasgow, the university was founded in 1451 and is presently one of seventeen British higher education institutions ranked amongst the top 100 of the...
, where, and in an effort to break away from tradition and do something radically different - he studied Naval Architecture. But there was little work in ship building in Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
and a career in Naval Architecture
Naval architecture
Naval architecture is an engineering discipline dealing with the design, construction, maintenance and operation of marine vessels and structures. Naval architecture involves basic and applied research, design, development, design evaluation and calculations during all stages of the life of a...
would make returning home difficult. With that in mind, Abed joined the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants
Chartered Institute of Management Accountants
The Chartered Institute of Management Accountants is a United Kingdom-based professional body offering training and qualification in management accountancy and related subjects, focused on accounting for business; together with ongoing support for members.CIMA is one of a number of professional...
in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, completing his professional education in 1962.
Abed returned to East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) to join Shell Oil Company
Shell Oil Company
Shell Oil Company is the United States-based subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell, a multinational oil company of Anglo Dutch origins, which is amongst the largest oil companies in the world. Approximately 22,000 Shell employees are based in the U.S. The head office in the U.S. is in Houston, Texas...
and quickly rose to head its finance division. His time at Shell exposed Abed to the inner workings of a large conglomerate and provided him with insight into corporate management, which would become invaluable to him later in life.
It was during his time at Shell that the devastating cyclone of 1970 hit the eastern coastal regions of the country, killing 300,000 people. The cyclone had a profound effect on Abed - in the face of such devastation, the comforts and perks of a corporate executive's life ceased to have any attraction for him. Together with friends, Abed created HELP, an organization that provided relief and rehabilitation to the worst affected in the island of Manpura, which had lost three quarters of its population in the disaster.
Soon after, Bangladesh’s own struggle for independence from Pakistan began and circumstances forced Abed to leave the country. He found refuge in England, where he set up Action Bangladesh to lobby for his country’s independence with the governments of Europe.
Formation of BRAC
When the war ended in December 1971, Abed sold his flat in London and returned to the newly independent Bangladesh to find his country in ruins. In addition, the 10 million refugees who had sought shelter in India during the war had started to return home. Their relief and rehabilitation called for urgent efforts. Abed decided to use the funds he had generated from selling his flat to initiate his own. He selected the remote region of Sulla in northeastern Bangladesh to start his work. This work led him and his organisation, BRAC, to deal with the long-term task of improving the living conditions of the rural poor.In a span of only three decades, BRAC grew to become the largest development organisation in the world in terms of the scale and diversity of its interventions. As BRAC grew, Abed ensured that it continued to target the landless poor, particularly women, a large percentage of whom live below the poverty line with little or no access to resources or conventional development efforts.
BRAC now operates in more than 69 thousand villages of Bangladesh and covers an estimated 110 million people through its development interventions that range from primary education, essential healthcare, agricultural support and human rights and legal services to microfinance and enterprise development.
In 2002, BRAC went international by taking its range of development interventions to Afghanistan. Since then, BRAC has expanded to a total of eight countries across Asia and Africa, successfully adapting its unique integrated development model across varying geographic and socioeconomic contexts.
Professional positions
Abed has held the following positions:- 2005 – Commissioner, UN Commission on Legal Empowerment of the Poor (CLEP)
- 2002 - Global Chairperson, International Network of Alternative Financial Institutions (INAFI) International.
- 2001 - Chairman, Board of Directors, BRAC Bank Limited.
- 2001 - President, The Governing Board of BRAC University.
- 2000 - Chairman, Governing Body, BRAC.
- 2000 - Chair, Finance & Audit Committee, International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), Los Banos, Philippines.
- 1999 - Member, Board of Governors, International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), Los Banos, Philippines.
- 1998 - Member, Policy Advisory Group, The Consultative Group to Assist the Poorest (CGAP), The World Bank, Washington, DC.
- 1994 - Member, Board of Trustees, Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD), Dhaka
- 1993 - Chairperson, Ain O Salish Kendra (ASK), a human rights organisation
- 1992 - Chairman, NGO Forum for Drinking Water Supply & Sanitation
- 1990 - Chairman, ‘Campaign for Popular Education’ (CAMPE), an NGO network on education.
- 1981-82 Visiting Scholar, Harvard Institute of International Development, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.
- 1982-86 Senior Fellow, Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS).
- 1982-86 Member, Board of Trustees, BIDS.
- 1982-86 Chairman, Association of Development Agencies in Bangladesh (ADAB).
- 1986-91 Member, World Bank NGO Committee, Geneva, Switzerland.
- 1987-90 Chairman, South Asia Partnership.
- 1987-90 Member, International Commission on Health Research for Development, Harvard UniversityHarvard UniversityHarvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA - 1992-93 Member, Independent South Asian Commission on Poverty Alleviation
- 1996- Member, Advisory Board, Shahjalal University of Science and TechnologyShahjalal University of Science and TechnologyShahjalal University of Science and Technology, commonly known by its initials SUST, is a state supported public research university located in Sylhet, Bangladesh. It is the first specialized Science & technology University of the country. The medium of instructions is English...
- 1998-2004 Member, Board of Governors, Institute of Development Studies (IDS), Sussex University, U.K.
Awards
- The Ramon Magsaysay AwardRamon Magsaysay AwardThe Ramon Magsaysay Award is an annual award established to perpetuate former Philippine President Ramon Magsaysay's example of integrity in government, courageous service to the people, and pragmatic idealism within a democratic society. The Ramon Magsaysay Award is often considered Asia's Nobel...
for Community Leadership, 1980 - The Alan Shawn Feinstein World Hunger Award, 1990
- The Maurice Pate Award by UNICEF, 1992
- The Olof Palme PrizeOlof Palme PrizeThe Olof Palme Prize is an annual prize awarded for an outstanding achievement in the spirit of Olof Palme. The Prize consists of a diploma and 75,000 US dollars.-Receivers of the Olof Palme Prize :*1987 Cyril Ramaphosa...
, 2001 - The Social Entrepreneurship Award by the Schwab Foundation, 2002
- The International Activist Award by the Gleitsman Foundation, 2003
- The UNDP Mahbub ul Haq Award, 2004
- The Henry R. Kravis Prize in Leadership, 2007
- The inaugural Clinton Global Citizen Award, 2007
- The David Rockefeller Bridging Leadership Award, 2008
- Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George (KCMG), 2009
- Honorary LLD, University of BathUniversity of BathThe University of Bath is a campus university located in Bath, United Kingdom. It received its Royal Charter in 1966....
, 2010 - The WISE Prize for Education , 2011