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SHAMERAN
ABED
Executive Director
BRAC International
equipment and mass awareness were some
of our earliest activities. As the pandemic
continued, those activities extended more
broadly; into financial support, such as
emergency cash distribution; mental health
support; health services such as tracking
and referrals and supplying doctors to the
government’s dedicated telemedicine
hotlines; door-to-door awareness to fight
misinformation and supporting the
government’s national mass vaccination
campaign. Our most recent project, which
brings together a wide coalition of
international and local partners to create
‘forts of resistance’ at the community level,
is bringing support and services to 81
million people across 35 high-risk districts
in the country, and is already seeing
widespread reductions in positive cases in
those districts. A significant reason behind
that is the supplying of 21 million masks
free of cost, to people who would otherwise
not be able to afford them.
BRAC International has been supporting
governments in Afghanistan, Uganda,
Liberia, and Sierra Leone with a range of
interventions including strengthening
health service systems, managing health
facilities and programmes on behalf of
provincial governments, and the
provisioning of handwashing materials and
COVID-19 related communication
materials.
Congratulations on assuming the We are a year and eight months into a pandemic, can With the unprecedented impact of the
Executive Director position at BRAC you tell us what are the challenges awaiting us in a pandemic, we are moving forward with
International. How have your post-pandemic world? more innovative and complementary
previous roles prepared you for the The poorest countries are being left behind. Global extreme projects and reaching out to vulnerable
demands of this position? poverty rose in 2020 for the first time in over 20 years due to people in hard-to-reach communities. We
I have been with the BRAC formally since the disruption caused by the pandemic. In 2021, the estimated have been strengthening our ability to
2009, and with BRAC International (BI) COVID-19 induced poverty is set to rise between 143 and 163 work more intensively with community
since 2012. During this time, I have had million. stakeholders and governments to create
the privilege of working with and leading As we confront unprecedented challenges due to the pandemic, healthy communities.
some of our largest programmes in we are reminded once again of the urgent need to build
Bangladesh and internationally, and resilience and create sustainable pathways out of poverty for BRAC in collaboration with SCB have
bringing BRAC’s flagship programmes of the world’s most marginalized. announced the launch of a Covid-19
microfinance and ultra-poor graduation to BRAC holds a truly unique position, as an organisation from response initiative that will work
global scale. Since 2016, I have been and for the Global South, to continue to demonstrate the same with returnee migrant workers to
overseeing a re-design of the programme in commitment and tenacity in designing and delivering ensure economic self-reliance
Bangladesh and setting up the Ultra-Poor practical, scalable, community-led solutions as we have done through skills and entrepreneurship
Graduation Initiative (UPGI) to spearhead for almost 50 years. development – can you elaborate on
global advocacy and provide technical this initiative?
assistance to governments and civil society BRAC testing booth and BRAC mass vaccination drive BRAC, in partnership with Standard
organisations. have been a boon for citizens during the ongoing Chartered Bangladesh, has launched a
My previous experience at BRAC will help pandemic – can you tell us about the other initiatives COVID-19 response initiative that will work
me oversee and guide BI’s strategies, BRAC has undertaken? with returnee migrant workers to ensure
programs and organisational development In Bangladesh, BRAC has been comprehensively supporting economic self-reliance through skills
for scaled impact and sustainable growth, the government to manage the pandemic. That support has Photograph: Courtesy training and entrepreneurship
and contribute to BRAC’s Global Strategy to ranged from collaborating at the policy level to ensuring that development. A recent BRAC survey
impact the lives of 250 million people by services get to the last mile on the ground in the most suggests half of the migrant workers who
2030. vulnerable communities. Testing kiosks, supply of protective
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www.ibtbd.net
returned to Bangladesh in the last year due to the pandemic
could not find gainful employment. Establishing three
Reintegration Support Centres, the project will provide
emergency arrival assistance at the airport, counselling, and
entrepreneurship training followed by financial assistance so
that the returnees can start new businesses.
We have also seen the rise of a new vulnerable group in
Bangladesh in the last year - the 'new poor'. These are people
who were living just above the poverty line before the
pandemic, and the secondary impacts of the pandemic, such
as lockdowns, pushed them into poverty. This group comprised
14% of the population in March 2021. There also has been
significant reverse migration - data suggests 9.8% of people
living in poverty in urban settlements before the pandemic
moved back to rural areas due to sudden income loss and
increased burden on non-food expenditure items.
The ultra-poor graduation programme has started a new
intervention to work with this group, to restart income
generating activities by providing credit and technical
coaching. Once the participants receive the credit, programme
staff work with them to select enterprises that match their
skills and encourage them to
diversify their income by
investing in more than one
enterprise and involving
other family members in the
process. This helps them in
building both short and long
term resilience to shocks.
Over 150,000 households are
expected to be reached
through this intervention in
2021 and 2022.
Data from World Bank’s
rapid phone surveys
launched in April 2020
across all developing
regions reports that more
than 60% of households
lost some income – how is
BRAC International
looking to offer policy and
programme support in
these regions?
In 2021, the estimated COVID-19-induced poverty is set to rise
to between 143 and 163 million. BRAC’s Ultra-Poor
Graduation (UPG) approach is a globally recognised model for
its innovative and holistic solution to ultra-poverty. It is a
comprehensive, time-bound, integrated and sequenced set of
interventions that aim to enable extreme and ultra-poor
households to achieve key milestones towards sustainable
livelihoods and socio-economic resilience, in order to progress
along a pathway out of extreme poverty.
BRAC International’s UPG approach is currently being applied
in Liberia, Uganda, and the Philippines. In Liberia, for instance,
last year we supported over 750 women-headed households to
achieve economic self-reliance through training on enterprise
management, life skills, financial literacy, and saving.
How is BRAC’s selection into The Audacious Project going
to facilitate this?
Last year BRAC’s Ultra-Poor Graduation Initiative (UPGI) was
selected as an Audacious Project, one of eight organisations
selected. With the Audacious award, we raised significant
resources, more than $60 million, to finance an ambitious plan to
help 21 million people lift themselves out of extreme poverty in
the next five years.
With this investment, we will scale BRAC’s Graduation approach
through governments and their existing social protection
programmes in countries where we see the greatest potential
impact. This new grant will leverage approximately $5.8 billion in
existing government and donor funding and channel those funds
toward well-executed, government-led Graduation programmes.
This Audacious grant underscores BRAC’s transformative role in
developing innovative initiatives in the Global South, proving
their effectiveness, and scaling them for greatest impact. to be done, but both BRAC and BRAC
International are committed to aggressively
With the recent withdrawal of American troops from pursuing our impact goals and ensuring
Afghanistan the country has witnessed a surge in Taliban BRAC remains courageous and tenacious in
activities. How is BRAC International devising their tackling the world’s most difficult
organisational strategies in the region in light of this challenges.
recent development?
BRAC International is implementing mitigation measures to What are the leadership strategies we
minimise the risks to the safety and security of our staff and the can expect to see from you?
communities we serve, which is our highest concern. As we move forward with our ambitious
We are relocating our expatriate staff to secure locations outside strategy to impact the lives of 250 million
the country amidst the escalating violence and volatile people by 2030, I cannot stress enough
environment in Afghanistan. how important it is to keep the people that
There are about 3,000 national staff engaged with BRAC projects we serve, and in particular women and
in 10 Afghan provinces, and we are doing our utmost to ensure girls, central to our thinking.
the safety and security of our staff in the country. In my past role as the head of BRAC’s
As the current crisis intensifies, BRAC remains committed to microfinance programmes, whenever there
reaching and delivering to the most vulnerable in Afghanistan, were discussions in team meetings or
particularly women and children. Our team of more than 3000 boardrooms of double and triple bottom
Afghans is already on the ground. Our first priority is to address lines, I would always remind everyone that
the needs of female-headed households as they are extremely at BRAC we have a single bottom line, and
vulnerable in the current context. We are also identifying the best that is impact. Every single thing that we
means for providing urgently needed support to women and girls, do must ultimately have an impact on the
and displaced families. lives of the people we serve. Impact at scale
Our ability to respond with urgency and continue working with is the only KPI that ultimately matters. It is
women and girls depends on the generosity of our donors. We not about how much money we raise, or
welcome online donations on our website: how many programmes we run. If we
https://bracinternational.org/afghanistan-humanitarian-crisis cannot show clear impact, we will have
failed entirely. Therefore, all the money we
Can you share with us your expansion plans for BRAC’s raise and each and every programme that
international portfolio? we deliver must have impact at scale.
Over the coming years we are looking to expand geographically I am confident that as long as we stay true
into new countries, but just as importantly, we are also focused to our core values - integrity, inclusiveness,
on deepening our presence and impact in the ten countries where effectiveness and innovation - and our way
we already work. of work, as a Global South organisation
My focus is to guide BRAC International’s strategies, programmes that can scale practical solutions from the
and organisational development for scaled impact and ground up, we will continue to have the
sustainable growth, to realise our ambitious global strategy to impact that we want to see. In the days,
impact the lives of 250 million people by 2030. months and years ahead, I will focus our
We will continue with our holistic approach to address the work singularly on our core mission, live
complex nature of extreme poverty, and work across all the by our values and ensure that all our
sectors - health, education, financial inclusion, food security, efforts ultimately lead to the desired
livelihoods, climate and agriculture. A good deal of work remains impact.