Technical Assistance

As well as running our own BRAC country programmes, we also provide direct technical assistance and operational support to development organisations in a number of countries. These are organisations that have visited our operations in Bangladesh and other countries and been keen to replicate these successful approaches back home.

We work with governments, NGOs, commercial banks, microfinance institutions, and donors. We help organisations pilot and adapt our approaches as well as take the programmes to full scale over a number a years. Our partnership approach is long-term and hands-on.

Our technical assistance programmes mainly focus on programmes for the ultra poor, small-scale entrepreneurs, and microfinance borrowers.

Our current collaborations are:

India

We have a long term partnership with the Calcutta based development organisation, Bandhan and Trickle-up. We are helping them implement an ultra poor programme and a small enterprise programme in West Bengal. We are involved with the roll out, selecting the ultra poor women and the process for distributing assets etc.
 

Indonesia

BRAC is providing managerial and technical support on microfinance to the Aceh Society Development Cooperative (ASD in Aceh. Currently we have four full time managers based there – two area managers and an accountant and a programme manager.

We are assisting with customising the approach, implementing the services and providing long term support.

Haiti

BRAC has been working in partnership with leading Haitian NGOs to replicate our ultra poor programme. A successful initial pilot started in 2007 has led to a joint fundraising initiative that aims to scale up the programme across the country.

Fonkoze, BRAC, Partners in Health/Zanmi Lasante, CGAP, CHF Partners in Rural Development and Linked Foundation have joined forces to commit $50 million towards a two-year effort to implement a proven, replicable, cost-effective approach to improving health and reducing extreme poverty in Central Haiti.

President Clinton’s appointment as United Nations special envoy to Haiti and the fifth annual Clinton Global Initiative draw attention to the extreme and persistent poverty in Haiti and the need for innovative solutions.

Fonkoze and Zanmi Lasante, two leading Haitian NGOs with decades of experience in the target area, together with BRAC, the largest NGO in the Global South, and other organizations are using their complementary strengths to improve health, eliminate extreme poverty, and develop youth leaders in this hemisphere’s poorest country.

"The needs are so great," said Fazle Hasan Abed Founder and Chairperson of BRAC.  "We will work in partnership to address each facet of extreme poverty and to break its grip."

Targeting 575,000 people in Haiti’s Central Plateau, the major components of this commitment involve building:

• Safety nets with transitions to sustainable enterprise for the most vulnerable;
• Comprehensive health services;
• Food security and agricultural training and employment;
• Improved water access and sanitation; and
• Youth leadership development and training.

“Bringing together our combined successes and expertise in a comprehensive economic, health, and leadership development approach is the precise, direct strategy needed at this crucial time,” said Anne Hastings, Director of Fonkoze.  “We all seek to build a sustainable future for Haiti and her people.”

Northern Sudan

BRAC is providing technical assistance to Bank Al Usra in Khartoum, Sudan with funding from Islamic Development Bank (IDB) Jeddah and Central Bank of Sudan (CBOS). We are helping them implement a small enterprise microfinance programme.

The bank has eleven branch offices (six of which have been opened with the assistance of the BRAC TA team) in four states. Eight more branches are to be opened by the end of the agreement in March 2010.

Yemen

BRAC’s has recently started providing technical assistance to the Yemen Social Fund for Development. It is a two year programme that will replicate our ultra poor programme.