How BRAC started Asia Pacific's Entrepreneurial Revolution 40 years ago

[chris macrae]

ENTREPRENEURIAL REVOLUTION - 2012 the first 40 years

we tell the story of how The Economist London started a search in 1972 for those who wanted to invest in the net generation being the most productive time alive at www.wholeplanet.tv where you can also download on the book based on diaries of the journalist who invented the genre of Entrepreneurial Revolution (ER) to celebrate the coming of the net generation

 

The basic economic ER assertion at The Economist since 1972 being that none of the industrial age's main organisational typologies can sustain the net generation's productivity and community sustainability - so gov and com and org will nee to partner in the best and end the greatest risks of each other models if we are to celebrate youth and post-industrial economics

 

1972 BRAC is born in the deluge of a local typhoon- so much infarstiructure and peoples are lost that no top down relief agency can work without BRAC's bottom-up support

 

by 1978 BRAC was more intentionally beginning its search for long =term partners of every typology - here is an extract from Smillie's Freedom From Want 2010

 

As Sir Fazle experienced the first 7 years of the infant nation of Bangldesh, he had seen the contraints on the poor: an absence of land and assets, dependence on self-reinforcing village power structure, poor organisation, and an absence of knowledge required to make even small changes. BRAC's experience with replicating oral rehydration showed it could target the poor. It could build awareness. It could provide the trainung needed for new kinds of enterprise. And by 1978 it had already put out more than $100,000 in microcredit. In the process, it had discovered that regardless of collateral, the poor were actually a good credit risk.

The Rural Credit and Training Program (RCTP) that Abed proposed to Oxfam in 1978 drew all the strands together. BRAC would combine agricultural extension, farmer training in resource management and vocational skills, and extension of credit in a single package. Although the lack of agricultural credit for small farmers was now widely understood to be a bottleneck for food production, the government's specialist bank in this area still required co;lateral. Abed had seen all the major delivery systems - coop banks, agricultural banks, rural development agencies fail due to default, low impact and then a drift towards larger clientelle. And he saw additional problems from the farmers point of view; red tape, surety requirements, bribes, and the costs arising from loss of work of travelling from the vilage to the bank,

 

Abed believed BRAC could provide loans to those without collateral if the borrowers were well known to BRAC, if BRAC worked closely with them on their investment plans, if training and extension were part of the arrangement, and if there were reguiar follow-up on weekly loan repayments.

 

The RCTP was nothing if not ambitious. The budget $12 million dollars in today;s terms a large sum esepecially for an organisation whose entire income the year before was less than a seventh of that. The plan was to open 14 branches in diferent rural areas. The next two years would be used to consolidate and evaluate "the success or failure of the experience" just as scientists do in labs. BRAC would apply its formula, but the formula would be tested and adatpted as required, and each ingredient would be carefully analyzed for its contribution to the end result.

 

... A year later the Ford Foundation provided funds for the renowned David Korten to visit BRAC. He was impressed and returned home to write a paper:

"A common error" he wrote "is to assume that reliable adherence to a plan of action is a desirable characteristic in an agency engaged in rural devlopment.. In fact the need is for an organisation  able to engage in a continuing process of creative adaptation: organisations that have the capacity to deal constructively with error"

 

Korten wrote about 3 types of organsiation: "the self-decieving organsiation" denies error and can always give visitors a polished briefing "fully believing their centrally planned program has worked as intended. producing results that meet or exceed their targets'

 

the defeated organisition speaks openly of its errors, but primarliy as a means of pointing out the perversity of the environment or the impossiibulity of the task

 

the learning organsiation values "error feedback" Korten said " as a source of vital data for makng adjustmenst. In the learning organisation, candor and practical sophistocation are key. Intellectual integrity is combined with a sense of purpose and vitality. "BRAC" Korten said " comes as near to a pure example of a learning organisation as one is likely to find"