Born in 1936, Sir Fazle Hasan Abed  completed his secondary education in Dhaka and went on to study at the University of Glasgow. He trained as a management accountant in London and came back to his homeland to eventually lead the finance division of Shell Oil Company there. 

He returned to the UK during the 1971 Bangladesh war of independence from Pakistan where he lobbied and raised funds for his country’s struggle.  After the conflict he found the newly-born country in ruins. It was then that, using his own savings, he established the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC) and launched a lifelong campaign to improve lives by educating the rural poor, now reaching nearly 140 million people in nine countries.

Over more than 40 years BRAC has become one of the largest non-government providers of education in the world and has contributed directly to the education of more than 10 million students at a variety of levels. BRAC concentrates on bringing education to children and young people who are not reached by the traditional education system. 

Currently, around 750,000 children – 70 per cent of them girls – are enrolled in 25,000 BRAC primary schools in Bangladesh. Pass rates are significantly higher than in the formal primary schools system and virtually all go on to learn in secondary schools. BRAC has expanded its work to pre-primary education, post-primary and continuing education, and has established an adolescent development center for girls. 

BRAC has also adapted its programs to a number of other countries in Africa and Asia, and now operates in Afghanistan, Pakistan, South Sudan and Uganda. In Afghanistan alone BRAC has established over 4,000 primary schools. More than 122,000 students – 84 per cent of them girls – have graduated from primary school and a further 125,000 are currently enrolled.

BRAC has applied the principle of self-help through education to a wide range of development sectors, including essential healthcare, agricultural support, human rights and legal services, as well as microfinance and enterprise development. 

Under the leadership of Fazle Hasan Abed, BRAC has continued to evolve, experiment and grow, collaborating with partners and adapting its experience to expand inclusion, empowerment and opportunity.