bdnews24.com :
BRAC, the world’s largest NGO, is changing its focus with the changing needs as well as Bangladesh context, but ultra-poor will still remain its ‘flagship’ development programme, new Executive Director Asif Saleh says.
“BRAC was always ahead of the time,” he told bdnews24.com on Wednesday, a day after a
major change in its governing body including retirement of founder Sir Fazle Hasan Abed.
Saleh, with his diverse multi-sectoral experience both in public and NGO sectors, has joined this position on Aug 1, after performing an ad interim role for three months.
The changes come at a time when Bangladesh is also changing and going to be a middle-income country by 2021. There has been massive poverty reduction in Bangladesh, though still 12 percent people remain ultra-poor.
New challenges such as rising unemployment emerged. Donors funding on development programme is shrinking. Many fear NGOs activities for the poor will also be limited.
Saleh, however, said their works will be driven by the “inspiration and motivation” they received from their founder Abed.
“He (Abed) tells us one thing that there will always be social problems that will require solutions,” he said, adding that to remain relevant, BRAC will address those problems.
According to Saleh, unemployment as well as skills development, urbanisation, and climate change will be in their focus in the next five years.
In some others sectors such as agriculture, they will work as a “catalyst”.
But the executive director understands financial sustainability of their programmes which range from education to extreme poverty alleviation to social business to massive microcredit operations across Bangladesh would be the key.
“We have to diversify our funding sources and how we can effectively do that will be the strategic side of working. It can be from social enterprise,” added Saleh, who worked for 12 years at Goldman Sachs in different tech roles and institutional client sales in New York and London.
BRAC, the world’s largest NGO, is changing its focus with the changing needs as well as Bangladesh context, but ultra-poor will still remain its ‘flagship’ development programme, new Executive Director Asif Saleh says.
“BRAC was always ahead of the time,” he told bdnews24.com on Wednesday, a day after a
major change in its governing body including retirement of founder Sir Fazle Hasan Abed.
Saleh, with his diverse multi-sectoral experience both in public and NGO sectors, has joined this position on Aug 1, after performing an ad interim role for three months.
The changes come at a time when Bangladesh is also changing and going to be a middle-income country by 2021. There has been massive poverty reduction in Bangladesh, though still 12 percent people remain ultra-poor.
New challenges such as rising unemployment emerged. Donors funding on development programme is shrinking. Many fear NGOs activities for the poor will also be limited.
Saleh, however, said their works will be driven by the “inspiration and motivation” they received from their founder Abed.
“He (Abed) tells us one thing that there will always be social problems that will require solutions,” he said, adding that to remain relevant, BRAC will address those problems.
According to Saleh, unemployment as well as skills development, urbanisation, and climate change will be in their focus in the next five years.
In some others sectors such as agriculture, they will work as a “catalyst”.
But the executive director understands financial sustainability of their programmes which range from education to extreme poverty alleviation to social business to massive microcredit operations across Bangladesh would be the key.
“We have to diversify our funding sources and how we can effectively do that will be the strategic side of working. It can be from social enterprise,” added Saleh, who worked for 12 years at Goldman Sachs in different tech roles and institutional client sales in New York and London.
