Fazle Hasan Abed, Founder and Chairperson, BRAC

Fazle Hasan Abed was born in 1936. Creator of the largest and one of the most effective NGOs in the world Dr. Abed is a pioneer in raising the standards of development organizations worldwide. He also strongly believes empowerment of women is a precondition for sustainable poverty alleviation. Many of the innovations pioneered by BRAC in education as well as in health, poverty eradication and rural development have been replicated in many developing countries.

Dr. Abed studied Naval Architecture at Glasgow University following which took professional examinations of the Chartered Institute of Cost and Management Accountants, London. While an executive at a multinational corporation, Dr. Abed returned to his native Bangladesh in the early 1970s and witnessed first-hand the devastation wrought by natural disasters and the War of Liberation. Moved to help, especially those in remote areas bordering India who had lost all means of survival, he leveraged his background as an accountant and manager to establish BRAC. Since its founding, it has combated poverty, disease, child mortality, and illiteracy on a massive scale by empowering the rural poor, helping 5.2 million women establish over 150,000 village organizations, reaching 90 million with its health programs, providing primary education to 3 million children and disbursing well over $3 billion in loans through a groundbreaking micro-credit program in Bangladesh.

Dr. Abed has served on the International Commission on Health Research for Development (1988-90), Independent South Asia Poverty Commission (1991-93). In recognition of his services to society he has received numerous national and international awards such as the Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership (1980), the Unesco Noma Prize for Literacy, Unicef's Maurice Pate Award, Doctorate of Laws from Queen's University, Canada, Olof Palme Prize for combating poverty and empowering the poor (2001), Social Entrepreneurship Award by the Schwab Foundation (2002), Gleitsman Foundation Award-2003, Honorary Doctorate of Education, University of Manchester, UK (2003), the Gates Award for Global Health 2004 and the UNDP Mahbub ul Haq Award for outstanding contribution in Human Development 2004.