Technology that works for the poor
As BRAC continues piloting and scaling up its own products and services targeted at the world’s poorest, it’s useful to see and learn from a growing cadre of others doing the same.
From basket case to bushels
At a ceremony this Sunday, the Food and Agriculture Organization will recognize countries that have achieved Millennium Development Goal number one, to halve their proportion of hungry people. Bangladesh, once labeled a basket case, will be one of them.
Healthcare for the world’s poor, from the world’s poor
This post first appeared on HuffingtonPost.com. Whenever we think about health services, the things that typically come to mind are doctors, paramedics, nurses or even hospitals. In Bangladesh, for decades women have been creating a new norm for how primary health care can look by delivering health care services using a door-to-door approach without the
...read more
Comparing branchless banking in Bangladesh and Pakistan
The following article was posted on CGAP’s website by Greg Chen on 06 June 2013. Bangladesh is a recent entrant into branchless banking – deployments only began in earnest in the middle of 2011. CGAP reviewed the first year of branchless banking (referred to as “mobile financial services” in Bangladesh) together with Bangladesh Bank up to March 2012. At that
...read more
Women behind the wheel
Putting women in the driver's seat as a metaphor is becoming something of a cliché in development policymaking circles. In countries like Bangladesh, literally putting women in the driver's seat is still a revolutionary idea.
Change from the very, very bottom-up
In 2006, Rasheda Sahab’s husband passed away from kidney failure, leaving her with four children and no money. Today's she's a thriving sanitation entrepreneur. Here's her story.
Overcoming gender inequality through water, sanitation and hygiene
During my 12 years of work experience in the water and sanitation sector, it has been evident that gender inequality and poverty exclude large numbers of people from enjoying the benefits of water supply and sanitation facilities and processes aimed at their improvement. There is a traditional concept that mainstreaming gender in water is a
...read more
Bangladesh’s garment workers face exploitation, but is it slavery?
Faustina Pereira, director of BRAC human rights and legal aid services, poignantly puts the focus where it needs to be. She says – “we are dealing with a sector that directly touches the lives and livelihoods of millions of individuals and their families, and directly contributes to lifting them out of abject poverty,” and that
...read more
Want to change the world? Apply to be one of Teach for Bangladesh’s first fellows
My former roommate, Nina, was a Teach for America fellow in the South Side of Chicago. Dropouts, teenage pregnancies, drugs, violence–she had plenty of stories about her students along these lines. But she had another one that was tragic in another way that stays in my mind: one of her students had been incredible
...read more
The world’s biggest family
One of the newest additions to BRAC's family worldwide tells her story of discovering what BRAC really is. Originally published at The Huffington Post.
