We thank Julian Francis, Khushi Kabir and Shireen Huq for taking us back to the early days of BRAC and sharing experiences that helped us stretch our imaginations and validate our ideas. Sincere thanks to Martha Chen, Lecturer in Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School and International Coordinator of the Global Research-Policy-Action Network Women in Informal Employment: Globalization and Organizing (WIEGO), for documenting the work of BRAC, with a special focus on women, the program in its first decade so rigorously ; and for sharing an invaluable memory and insight into BRAC, which is of great help in the research.
Sulla: Where BRAC Began
Introduction
Such a discursive construction of the region was critical for its inclusion in international aid discourse as a deserving candidate (Hossain, 2020). Starting in Sulla, one of the most remote regions in Sunamganj, Sylhet, BRAC would undergo continuous learning and experimentation, in.
Rehabilitation: Wayfaring, Attending, and Corresponding
Sir Fazle Hasan Abed and others realized the undesirable fate of the tin roofs used by BRAC in building houses for the displaced. Sukhen Sarkar (2021) recalled Sir Fazle Hasan Abed's advice on the significance of the practice of correspondence for learning: “As an academic, you can get a PhD.
The Community Development Approach: Acting and Reflecting
Akhtar Hameed Khan, well-known head of the Academy for Rural Development, strongly advocated for cooperative participation of villagers at the grassroots level to stimulate agricultural development and modernize the small farmers. BRAC experimented with most elements of the then existing structure of rural development, along with its programs that emerged from its learning from the field. BRAC envisioned Gonokendra as the center of the social life of a village, a space for social gatherings, education, training and awareness - in short, the locus of community development.
Gradually Sulla's people came to rely on the advice and example of the BRAC staff” (World Education, 1976, p. 3). The didactics would also leave a strong and lasting effect on the formation of BRAC's tradition, which focused on gaining knowledge to raise the awareness of the poor and thereby empower them. Although BRAC's adult education wing began with great promise, the completion rate dropped to as low as five percent by the end of the first year (BRAC, 1974).
BRAC undertook a critical evaluation of the program which identified the inconsistency between pedagogical materials and methods and the interests and needs of villagers (Korten, 1980). With the support of the village mashima (aunt), an 84-year-old widow, the news of the meeting spread in the village. It would closely observe rural dynamics and also learn about the complications of disasters, such as the 1974 Famine, on the lives of the poorest of the poor.
From Community to the Rural Power Structure: Learnings From 1974
- Poverty as a Relational Phenomenon
- Women Gain Centrality in BRAC’s Development
Ultimately, however, the elite gained access to the bulk of the subsidized credits, extension services, with high returns. In the case of Bangladesh, he found, the more prominent farmers captured the leadership and decision-making process of the government-registered cooperative credit societies. Blair identified the bureaucratic structure of the cooperative system as the primary factor ensuring the dominance of elites and exploitation of the poor.
Central to the community development approach was the understanding of community as "a unified political body founded on consensus and community" (Secomb, 2000, p. 133). Located in the northwest of the country, it was one of the most neglected, remote and poor regions. The studies initiated by BRAC, after the famine, featured a relational approach that foregrounded power, social relations and the political system to understand the dynamics of rural poverty.
Sir Fazle Hasan Abed's accounts of the gendered dimension of suffering during the 1974 Famine suggest that the plight of dependent figures has not changed. The first-hand observations of the misery of women and children had tremendous consequences for BRAC. The ethics of women in protecting the weakest members of the family and society was a critical observation of Abed during the famine.
Rethinking Development
- Realizations and Uncovering Village Complexities
However, this development model benefits the affluent members of the village community at the expense of marginalizing the poorest members (BRAC, 1988; Lovell, 1992). A host of other shortcomings in the approach also emerged as the team deepened its understanding of the structural constraints on doing development. Empowering the poor became the main goal of the people-centered approach to rural development (Korten, 1980).
Reflecting on the relationship between members of the poorest and the richest households within the structure of factionalism, dependency referred to the asymmetric dynamics deeply embedded in village social structures in Bangladesh, which left the poor and landless in a system of exploitation. Through the discussions, the team came to the conclusion that their function was not to provide services in the remote or neglected regions, but rather to test and experiment what could be done with and for the overlooked sections of the population - the poor (Chen, 1986) . With the new strategy, it was hoped that a development effort aimed at the poorest group in the villages would make it easier for them to break out of the dependency relationship.
Once organized into solidarity groups, it was assumed that through mutual assistance among members and the opportunities BRAC could provide, the poorest would eventually break the hierarchical dependency dynamics of the rural power structure (Lovell, 1992). Economic empowerment was not only a goal, but also a means for the complete upliftment of the poorest stratum as a whole within the village hierarchy. This would slowly pave the way for large-scale participation of the poor in many development interventions within this historical background and reality of Bangladesh.
Shades of Poverty: Defining the Poorest of the Poor
- Organizing the Poor With the new set of assumptions
The primary elements of BRAC's new methodology consisted of identifying the poor, organizing groups of the poor and forming a class federation, which were seen as sequential steps. A larger vision in this phase of BRAC's work was to build associations of the poor through organized groups that would eventually replace the forces of the rural power structure that for so long controlled the poor's agency and access to resources. It should build the collective capacity of the most marginalized to negotiate their position within social structures.
BRAC also changed the concept it had hitherto adopted for its field staff as motivators for professional program organizers (POs), while also abandoning the use of village volunteers, except in the special cases of health and parents' committees (Lovell, 1992). . The year 1978 was therefore dedicated to the training and mobilization of the new direction that was undertaken and a vision in place looked at the development of institutions from this most disadvantaged group—institutions that would instill agency in the targeted rural landless population and finally the role of BRAC. Another significant observation made during this time was the ineffectiveness of the ESP because it is group-based in nature.
The organization of the landless, marginal farmers and women are already becoming quite strong. many of the groups are now able to survive without the support of BRAC. As the withdrawal plans were drawn up, the political strength of the target population was being increased in each project village through the creation of groups. With the inclusion of the newly defined target population, a total of 64 groups were formed (31 males and 33 females) and another 70 main groups (39 males and 41 females) were assigned.
Conclusion
Women mobilized around social, political and economic issues, often against the tide of class and male dominance, and to challenge rural clientelism. To understand how the poor and women achieved centrality in BRAC's post-famine development discourses and practices, we need to consider the organization's pursuit and modes of recognition, as we have attempted to demonstrate here. From relief and then a community-based model, BRAC would refine and sharpen its lens, recognizing that many layers of poverty needed to be understood and responded to if it wanted to.
The team would continue to experiment with development models, and what began in distant Sulla in the 1970s would soon become the world's largest development effort today. The BRAC team, the management and the field workers gained knowledge by leading into the world of the poor people through journeying in the real life landscape, their attention relation to the world, their attention to the relational world of poverty as marginalization, critical reflection and cooperation with local people . The learning related not only to programmatic errors but also to the social reality of rural Bangladesh through the action.
The monograph shows how BRAC learned from every development action and the consequences of the 1974 famine in deepening its understanding of poverty as relational and gendered. BRAC's development paradigm evolved within the country's historical dynamics between disaster, gender and human development. But the monograph shows how BRAC's new analysis of poverty dynamics through the lens of class and gender shaped its people-centered approach and informed its development strategies for conscience-building.
Interview with Fazle Abed, Interviewed by Tarun Khanna, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, April Creating Emerging Markets Oral History Collection. The Politics of What Works: The Case of the Vulnerable Group Development Program in Bangladesh. Understanding Bangladesh's Unexpected Success (Critical Frontiers of Theory, Research and Policy in International Development Studies).
The role of the state in the economic development of Bangladesh during the Mujib regime. The remarkable success story of BRAC, the global grassroots organization winning the fight against poverty.
