HISTORY OF THE BRAC

Known formerly as the Bangladesh Rehabilitation Assistance Committee and then as the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (currently, BRAC does not represent an acronym), BRAC was initiated in 1972 by Sir Fazlé Hasan Abed at Shallah Upazillahin the district of Sunamganj as a small-scale relief and rehabilitation project to help returning war refugees after the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971. In nine months, 14 thousand homes were rebuilt as part of the relief effort and several hundred boats were built for the fishermen. Medical centres were opened and other essential services were ensured.^[8] At the end of 1972, when the first phase of relief work was over, BRAC turned towards long-term development needs and re-organised itself to focus on the empowerment of the poor and landless, particularly women and children.

By 1974, BRAC had started providing micro credit and had started analysing the usefulness of credit inputs in the lives of the poor. Until the mid-1970s, BRAC concentrated on community development through village development programmes that included agriculture, fisheries, cooperatives, rural crafts, adult literacy, health and family planning, vocational training for women and construction of community centres. A Research and Evaluation Division (RED) was set up by Dr. Mushtaque Chowdhury in 1975 to analyse and evaluate its activities and provide direction for the organisation to evolve. In 1977, BRAC shifted from community development towards a more targeted approach by organising village groups called Village Organisations (VO). This approach targeted the poorest of the poor – the landless, small farmers, artisans, and vulnerable women. Those who own less than half an acre of land and survive by selling manual labour were regarded as BRAC's target group. That same year BRAC set up a commercial printing press to help finance its activities. The handicraft retail chain called Aarong, was established the following year.

In 1979, BRAC entered the health field by establishing a nationwide Oral Therapy Extension Programme (OTEP), a campaign to combat diarrhoea, the leading cause of the high child mortality rate in Bangladesh. Over a ten-year period 1,200 BRAC workers went door-to-door to teach 12 million mothers the preparation of home-made oral saline. Bangladesh today has one of the highest rates of usage of oral rehydration, and BRAC's campaign cut down child and infant mortality from 285 per thousand to 75 per thousand.^{[9][page needed]} This initial success in scaling up propelled rapid expansion of other BRAC programmes such as Non Formal Primary Education which BRAC started in 1985 – a model that has been replicated in about a dozen countries.

In 1986 BRAC started its Rural Development Programme that incorporated four major activities – institution building including functional education and training, credit operation, income and employment generation and support service programmes. In 1991 the Women's Health Development program commenced. The following year BRAC established a Centre for Development Management (CDM) in Rajendrapur. Its Social Development, Human Rights and Legal Services programme was launched in 1996 with the aim to empower women with legal rights and assist them in becoming involved with community and ward level organisations. In 1998, BRAC's Dairy and Food project was commissioned. BRAC launched an Information Technology Institute the following year. In 2001, BRAC established a university called BRAC University with the aim to create future leaders and the BRAC Bank was started to cater primarily to small and medium entreprises.

In 2002 BRAC launched a programme called Challenging the Frontiers of Poverty Reduction – Targeting the Ultra Poor (CFPR-TUP) designed specifically for those that BRAC defines as the ultra poor - the extreme poor who cannot access conventional microfinance. The same year BRAC also went into Afghanistan with relief and rehabilitation programmes. It was the first organisation in Bangladesh to establish, in 2004, the office of an Ombudsperson.