BRAC Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 4000 words

BRAC - Essay Example The report examines the diverse innovative strategies employed by BRAC to reach out at the very poor in segregated regions of the country. The various diverse methods include TUP, STUP, and IGVGD all aimed at ensuring the ‘ultra poor’ people benefit from its programs. The report explores the various diverse programmes from Asia to Africa including education, health services, agricultural and other commercial enterprises. The report also traces the backward and forward linkages employed by BRAC to enhance the potency of its programs. The issue of gender targeting is also scrutinised and outlined in the report: why BRAC and other MFIs deliberately target women. The report extensively evaluates the impact of gender targeting, its effectiveness and negative attributes. Lastly, the report outlines the wider impacts of BRAC and other MFIs particularly on poverty alleviation, women rights awareness, and public health alleviation using empirical data gathered by the MFIs in the field. Microfinance is the concept of providing financial services to the poor and microcredit through small loans to these people who normally lack assets used as collateral. Microfinance is however not confined to credit services alone but also support services including technical assistance, training and other facilities. Microfinance programs have been identified as one of the key approaches that can be used to assist in poverty eradication mostly in developing countries targeting those deemed un-bankable by the mainstream commercial banks. These marginalised groups are usually found in the desperately poor rural households or city slums, many lacking even the basic asset of own land or other viable assets (Arun et al, 2009). One country that has perfected this concept is Bangladesh where over 1,000 non-governmental organisations (NGOs) provide this valuable service to the rural poor. Among them, the most