Article on Fonkoze's Work in Haiti on TriplePundit.com

The following article, written by Jennifer Hicks, appeared on TriplePundit.com on April 28th, 2010, entitled, "Fonkoze Aims to Bring Sustainability to Lives of Haitian Women." Fonkoze, a partner organization of BRAC, is Haiti’s largest microfinance organization with a mission to build the economic foundation for democracy in Haiti by providing the rural poor – mostly women – with the tools they need to lift themselves out of poverty. Fonkoze operates more than 40 branches throughout Haiti and offers a full range of financial services, currently reaching more than 225,000 savers and borrowers. The article also references BRAC and the Mastercard Foundation:

This is a once-only opportunity to build a whole new country from scratch, perhaps to offer something of the good wishes the new nation should have been given 200 years ago,” writes AA Gill in the London Times, in a gut-wrenching account of living conditions in Haiti today, three months after a crushingly destructive earthquake that was followed by dozens of aftershocks.

And, Fonkoze, aims to help that rebuilding. Fonkoze, Haiti’s largest microfinance provider, along with a $4.5 million grant from the Mastercard Foundation made on April 20, hopes to spur the economy from the ground up by enabling the poorest of the country’s women to rebuild or create livelihoods. (Watch a video of Fonkoze and its work in Haiti.)

Why focus on women?
Gill notes that the quake “was a women’s tragedy,” because many were in their homes cooking in the late afternoon when the earth trembled and structures fell apart akin to card houses. “It was of course a nation’s tragedy, but it [leans] particularly heavily on women,” he adds.

What will the grants provide?
The Mastercard Foundation grant funds will be used to help provide enterprise training; assets such as goats and chickens; stipends; and mentoring to 1,000 women. It will offer small loans and financial counseling to another 4,000 women. And some of the funds will be used to help restore Fonkoze’s core operations, which were badly damaged by the quake.

The women’s program, which has already gone through a pilot phase and is now ready to scale up, costs $1,500 per family, according to Ann Hastings, Fonkoze’s CEO. “Based on our surveys, we believe about 143,650 households in Haiti would qualify for this program,” she adds. “That would cost about $215 million, although the cost per family could go down with efficiencies of scale.”

The Mennonite Economic Development Associates will provide oversight of the program. MEDA, a group that invests in the lives of poor families around the world, will manage the funding and provide periodic progress reports and some advisory services. MEDA itself has a $500,000 investment in Fonkoze, and is represented on its board of directors. The group has also raised $30,000 to help Fonkoze further re-establish itself after the earthquake, and “works with Fonkoze to determine how to best apply funds donated, and will also help with advisory services and any technical assistance required,” according to the MEDA website.

Why microfinancing?
“People living in poverty can change their lives in the long-term with needed, short-term assistance,” asserts Reeta Roy, president and CEO of The MasterCard Foundation.

Unlike traditional philanthropy, “microfinance provides people who are living in poverty a means to build assets and generate income by starting a business,” explains Roy, which also donates to other microfinancing projects. “It’s not a hand-out, it’s a hand up that enables people to use their own resourcefulness to create more sustainable livelihoods,” she adds.

Microfinancing works
The Mastercard foundation has made other investments in microfinancing projects. Among them are endeavors in Uganda, where it partnered with BRAC and invested $19.6 million, sub-Saharan Africa, where it partnered with Opportunity International Canada and invested $8 million, and Egypt and Morocco, where it partnered with MEDA and invested $5 million.

Roy travels to the places where the foundation makes investments. “I met people in our program [who] measured change in simple and powerful terms: going from chronic hunger to eating twice a day, doubling the number of chickens or eggs sold in the market, to their ability to cover school fees for their children,” she says.

Click here to read Hicks' article on triplepundit.com.

Head of two BRAC social enterprises Tamara Abed meets President Obama

Tamara Abed, the head of BRAC's retail social enterprise Aarong and BRAC Dairy, is representing BRAC at the Presidential Summit on Entrepreneurship in Washington, DC.

Tamara met President Obama yesterday and thanked him for his leadership and his administration’s outstanding effort in organizing this historic summit. Later today, she will be speaking at the summit on a panel titled “Unleashing the Power of Women Entrepreneurs.” You can watch the panel live via webcast at http://www.state.gov/entrepreneurshipsummit/ starting at 2:10pm EDT.

This two-day summit is being held to connect business leaders, foundations, and entrepreneurs in the United States and Muslim communities around the world. The summit is follows through on President Obama’s commitment “to join existing efforts and inspire new efforts to promote entrepreneurship and innovation on a global scale. It represents an opportunity to highlight and support business and social entrepreneurship in Muslim-majority countries (MMCs), including their minority populations, and Muslim communities around the world.”

Tamara is part of the senior management team at BRAC. She joined BRAC in 2002 and heads two of the most profitable of BRAC’s social enterprises including Aarong; the largest retail chain of lifestyle store in Bangladesh, selling handicrafts made by its 65,000 rural artisans.

She also heads BRAC Dairy, the second largest dairy operation in Bangladesh, which provides rural farmers with a value chain linkage to the market and protects them from price volatility. Tamara is also on the board of BRAC Bank, a publicly listed commercial bank with the largest SME portfolio in Bangladesh.

Tamara received her MBA in Finance from Columbia University and B SC. (Econ.) from the London School of Economics. She started her career as an investment banker in Peregrine Capital Ltd. in Dhaka and then also worked in Goldman Sachs in New York in Mergers and Strategic Advisory. Tamara was recently honored by the World Economic Forum as a Young Global Leader for the year 2010.

Click here to tune in to the live webcast at 2:15pm.

This Earth Day, an insight into climate change in Bangladesh

River erosion in Bangladesh

(Photo credit: Shehzad Noorani/BRAC)

Bangladesh, BRAC's headquarters and country of origin, suffers from floods, cyclones and, in some areas, drought. As climate change forces the frequency and intensity of natural disasters to build, Bangladesh and other nations in this world face the devastating consequences: The country could lose up to a third of its land mass, displacing nearly 40 million people.

Earth Day is a great opportunity for individuals to reevaluate the small choices they make everyday - paper or plastic, long or short shower, biking or driving to work - in order to contribute positively to the cause and start to temper the effects of climate change.

BRAC continues to build its capacity in order to better respond to natural disasters, saving lives and preventing loss. Since its inception, BRAC USA has mobilized resources and provided support after 2 devastating cyclones in Bangladesh, helping BRAC implement long-term recovery plans aimed toward building the nation's ability to respond and adapt. After the tidal surges of Cyclone Aila in Bangladesh in May 2009 left hundreds of thousands of people homeless, without fresh water or food, BRAC reached out to the affected communities with emergency relief and plans for longer term rehabilitation, like introducing varieties of seeds and rice that can grow in the now-salinated water.

By educating ourselves about climate change and the perils of continuing to live as we have, making changes as we go, we can work towards avoiding future disasters altogether. To learn more, take the Clinton Foundation's new climate quiz - for each person who takes it, $2 is donated toward the purchase of solar flashlights for those living in camps in Haiti.

BRAC USA Needs Summer Interns!

Are you interested in international development? Do you want to learn from BRAC, one of the world's largest and most effective international development organizations?

BRAC USA is seeking motivated individuals to assist with a variety of projects and initiatives related to BRAC's programmatic areas, public education, program and strategic support services to BRAC programs in Africa and Asia, and grant administration and grant making strategies.

Come learn about development from the inside of the BRAC USA office! This unpaid internship is an excellent opportunity for those interested in learning about fundraising, grant making and BRAC's scalable and sustainable approach to poverty alleviation.

Interns will possess excellent writing and editing skills, strong interest in international development, ability to work independently and quickly, experience with the nonprofit sector, and proficiency with Microsoft Office software. Advanced degrees and foreign languages a plus.

To apply, please submit a cover letter and resume to Sherie Gertler at sherie@bracusa.org with "Summer Internship 2010" in the subject line.

Sir Fazle Hasan Abed Visits BRAC Uganda Programs and Staff

In the midst of his visit to the BRAC Program in Africa, the Chairperson of BRAC, Sir Fazle Hasan Abed, visited Uganda last week, together with Lady Sarwat Abed. Sir Fazle began his trip by visiting BRAC Uganda's programs in Luwero district. He visited BRAC Uganda's seed trial farm, where new seed varieties are tested before being introduced to farmers in the country. During the visit, Sir Fazle highlighted the need for BRAC to set up an Agriculture Training Center in Uganda to better train farmers on advanced farming practices.

Sir Fazle also interacted with BRAC staff at the Luwero Area Office, engaging in an open discussion about the progression of the microfinance program. He was keen to learn more about how poor women are using the money they are given and what types of businesses they choose to run.

Sir Fazle's visit to Uganda culminated with a small staff reception organized in his honor at the BRAC Uganda Country Office. About 100 staff members were gathered to listen to him speak and interact with him. During his brief remarks, Sir Fazle noted that he was quite impressed with the progress that BRAC has made in Uganda. He recalled that in 1982, 10 years after BRAC began in Bangladesh, the organization employed about 380 people. Now, BRAC Uganda, within only four years, had grown to become the largest NGO in the country, employing more than 1,800 people and reaching 1.8 million poor in the country.

He thanked the staff for their dedication, commitment, and hard work in building BRAC Uganda. He especially thanked the national staff and remarked that the responsibility of developing Uganda rests in the hands of Ugandans. He expects BRAC Uganda to become an indigenous organization fighting poverty and injustice in the country.

BRAC Partner in Haiti: Association of Peasants of Fondwa

The Association of Peasants of Fondwa (APF) is a grassroots organization that has worked hand in hand with the peasants of Fondwa, Haiti since 1998. Fondwa is a small village of 7,000 people located in the mountains south of Port-au-Prince in Leogane district. Just two hours from the capital, it nonetheless suffers from the same dire challenges of Haiti's rural countryside. These include limited access to water, ravaging deforestation, indifference on the part of the State, and economic isolation.

APF envisions a new rural Haiti, one comprised of sustainably and holistically developed communities that actively promote the civil and human rights of the poor. The accomplishments of the APF include building the area's first health clinic and secondary school, caring for dozens of children in the St. Anthony orphanage, planting more than half a million trees, working with peasants and international experts in agronomy and veterinary medicine, and conducting extensive literacy campaigns.

As a result of the earthquake on January 12th, APF’s office in Port-Au-Prince was rendered unusable and the small enterprises set up in Fondwa suffered damages. APF has put together a committee to assess the damages and strategize the best way to repair damaged structures and enable the small enterprises, which are central to Fondwa’s economy, to re-open.

The founder of the APF, Fr. Joseph Philippe, who is also the founder of Fonkoze and a partner of BRAC, visited Bangladesh in October 2009 and BRAC USA in November 2009. He met with BRAC International Executive director Aminul Alam in February while he was in Haiti and is currently working with the two Haitian-American’s BRAC USA mobilized to help get BRAC’s programs in Haiti set up. BRAC intends to work in partnership with APF as it starts its programs in Haiti.

BRAC's Chair commits to large scale poverty alleviation in Tanzania

This week BRAC Chairperson Sir Fazle Hasan Abed met with HE Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete, the President of the United Republic of Tanzania at the President's Palace.

In the meeting, Sir Fazle updated the President on BRAC's programs in Tanzania, which - in less than four years - is already providing microfinance and other livelihood development services to over 500,000 poor families across 18 of the 26 regions of the country.

Sir Fazle presents President Kikwete with Freedom From Want,
the book that tells the story of BRAC

"We want to have the greatest impact on poverty within the shortest possible timeframe in Tanzania," he said while outlining his vision for BRAC Tanzania. He emphasized the importance of appropriate policy and regulatory architecture for deeper outreach of microfinance and other services to the rural poor. The President expressed his deep appreciation for BRAC's work in Tanzania, especially its strong focus on reaching rapid scale throughout the country with microfinance.

Sir Fazle Hasan Abed was accompanied by the Executive and Deputy Executive Director of BRAC International, and the Country Head of BRAC Tanzania.

Happy Bangla New Year!

Happy Bangla New Year to all of our BRAC friends and employees across the world!

Those of us at BRAC USA send warm wishes and hopes for a prosperous new year to all of those celebrating and their families.