Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC)

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Website: https://www.gdrc.org/icm/brac.html

Location

Dhaka, Bangladesh

Parent Organization

Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR)

Overview

As the rural population of Bangladesh increases, landlessness among people once dependent upon agriculture is a growing problem. The Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC) has been working with the rural poor since 1972, and in 1979 it began to provide credit via its 81 branches through the Rural Development Programme (RDP). Ten years later, significant success of the RDP in generating incomes and employment through small businesses and building up assets can be seen.

BRAC was started in early 1972 as a relief measure following the war of liberation. Soon it became a community development organization providing health, family planning, education and economic support to different sectors of the rural community, but with particular emphasis on the most disadvantaged, such as women, fishermen and the landless. Since 1977, however, BRAC has been working exclusively with disadvantaged sections of the community.

BRAC's initial experience with credit dates back to the early 1970s. In 1974, Brac provided credit to the villagers in its Sulla Project in Sylhetdistrict through the Sulla Thana Central Co-operative Association. In the following year, credit was advanced without interest to several landless groups; in 1976, BRAC started providing credit to landless through its Manikganj project.

The Rural Development Programme (RDP) is one of the major programmes of BRAC. Started in 1979, RDP had grown by December 1989 into a large programme providing credit to target groups from 81 branches in 45 sub-districts of 22 districts. Its major objectives include:

building viable organizations of the poor capable of bringing about desired changes in their own socio-economic and political circumstances;
improving the socio-economic status of the rural poor through the provision of easy credit for income and employment generating activities; and
developing the managerial and enterpreneurial capabilities of the poor.

To attain the above objectives, RDP works through different components in the following chronological order:

Conscientization. RDP starts its operation with a conscientization programe through BRAC's functional education curriculum. Classes are held separately for men and women.
Institution building. The functional education classes normally lead to the formation of village organizations for men and women.
Training. Different types of training are organized for the members of newly formed groups. Some of these are held at BRACs own training centres, while others are held in RDP's local offices. The programme also a para-legal aid programme to provide legal awareness to group members.
Credit support. The above activities normally take approximately six months before the group members become eligible to receive credit from RDP.
Technical and Logistical support. Some of the income generation activities may reqire higher level technical and logistical support which are provided by BRAC. Examples include, vaccines for livestock and poultry, and marketing of locally produced items such as garments.