Preface
“BRAC is the most astounding social enterprise in the world. This story combines the raw excitement of how a huge business can spring from one man’s acumen with emotive charge that comes when poverty and oppression are routed. Business can be exhilarating, and reading why can be a pleasure.”
Paul Collier, Author of “The Bottom Billion”
Pg. 71
A widow holding two acres of land and having three children to support, incapable of affording her the slightest assistance, was accommodated with a loan of £5; she bought a cow and readily paid the 5s a week from the proceeds of her milk and butter. From this cow, she has reared two calves, one of which is now an excellent milch cow, the other just ready for the butcher, a week or two since she sold her first purchase £9 and states that, but for the assistance of the society, she should have been a beggar.
Pg. 141
It is a sad commentary on countries in Europe and North America that provide foreign aid with one hand-dispensed with lashings of advice about how poor countries must liberalize their economies and eschew subsidies-while simultaneously undercutting the world price of grain, dairy products, and other goods through generous subsidies to their own producers. What is good for the goose is apparently not good for the gander.
Pg. 181
By 2008, more than 3,000 of these committees had been established, and BRAC calculated their cumulative contribution to the program (in cash and in kind) could be valued at Tk 30 million. This amounted to less than US $150 per village, but it was a start, not just of additional resources, but of a possible new way of thinking about community development.
Pg. 237
Tanzania is an island of relative stability in a volatile part of Africa. Despite of its economic and democratic progress, however, the quality of life for the average Tanzanian has not greatly improved in recent years. Life expectancy is 44 years and falling, and the infant mortality rate is rising. Both trends are due largely to the country’s high HIV/AIDS infection rate. Roughly half of the population subsists on less than US $1 a day, and two out of every five Tanzanians are unable to meet their basic daily needs.
