YPSA deeply mourns the loss of Sir Fazle Hasan Abed, founder of world’s largest non-government development organization Brac. He passed away on 20th December at the age of 83. The demise of such a great humanitarian soul is an irreparable loss to us. YPSA extends its deepest condolences and sympathies to his family.
Sir Fazle Hasan Abed was born in 1936 in Bangladesh. He studied Accountancy in London, qualifying as a Cost Management Accountant in 1962.While he was working as a senior corporate executive at Pakistan Shell, the 1970 cyclone and 1971 Liberation War in Bangladesh dramatically changed the direction of his life. He left his job and moved to London, where he helped initiate Action Bangladesh and HELP Bangladesh in support of the Liberation War.
Early in 1972, after the war of liberation was over, he returned to the newly-independent Bangladesh, finding the economy in ruins. The return of 10 million refugees who had sought shelter in India during the war called for urgent relief and rehabilitation efforts. Sir Fazle established BRAC to address the needs of refugees in a remote area of north-eastern Bangladesh, guided by a desire to help people living in poverty develop their own capacity to better manage their lives.
Over the course of three decades, under Sir Fazle’s inspiring leadership, the humanitarian organization he founded, BRAC, has become one of the world’s leading development organizations and a global brand in the development community.
As BRAC grew, Abed ensured that it continued to target the landless poor, particularly women, a large percentage of whom live below the poverty line with little or no access to resources or conventional development efforts.
Abed has changed the concept of NGOs all over the world. The idea that an NGO could come forward to provide a comprehensive solution to almost all the problems in a country was absolutely unthinkable.
It was Abed, who provided us with the idea of a big NGO that can work through numerous different institutions and programs inside the country and abroad.
