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We are witness to monumental
human progress.
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Over the past few decades,
the expansion of the global marketplace
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has lifted a third of the world's
population out of extreme poverty.
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Yet we are also witness
to an astounding failure.
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Our efforts to lift people up
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have left behind those
in the harshest forms of poverty,
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the ultra poor.
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What it means to be ultra poor
goes beyond the monetary definition
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that we're all familiar with:
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living on less than two dollars a day.
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It goes even beyond not having assets
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like livestock or land.
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To be ultra poor means to be stripped
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of your dignity, purpose and self-worth.
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It means living in isolation,
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because you're a burden
to your own community.
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It means being unable
to imagine a better future
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for yourself and your family.
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By the end of 2019,
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about 400 million people
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were living in ultra poverty worldwide.
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That's more than the populations
of the United States and Canada combined.
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And when calamity strikes,
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whether it's a pandemic,
a natural disaster or a man-made crisis
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these numbers spike astronomically higher.
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My father, Fazle Abed,
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gave up a corporate career
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to establish BRAC
here in Bangladesh in 1972.
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Bangladesh was a wreck,
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having just gone through
a devastating cyclone
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followed by a brutal war for independence.
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Working with the poor,
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my father realized that poverty
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was more than the lack
of income and assets.
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It was also a lack of hope.
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People were trapped in poverty
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because they felt their condition
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was immutable.
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Poverty, to them,
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was like the sun and the moon,
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something given to them by God.
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For poverty reduction programs to succeed,
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they would need to instill
hope and self-worth
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so that, with a little support,
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people could lift themselves
out of poverty.
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BRAC went on to pioneer
the graduation approach,
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a solution to ultra poverty
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that addresses both income poverty
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and the poverty of hope.
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The approach works primarily with women,
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because women are
the most affected by ultra poverty
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but also the ones most likely
to pull themselves
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and their families out of it.
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Over a two year period,
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we essentially do four things.
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One, we meet a woman's basic needs
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by giving her food or cash,
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ensuring the minimum to survive.
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Two, we move her
towards a decent livelihood
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by giving her an asset, like livestock,
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and training her to earn money from it.
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Three, we train her to save,
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budget, and invest her new wealth.
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And four, we help
to integrate her socially,
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first into groups of women like her,
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and then into her community.
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Each of these elements
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is key to the success of the others,
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but the real magic is the hope
and sense of possibility
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that women develop through
the close mentorship they receive.
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Let me tell you about ??.
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?? was born in a remote village
in northern Bangladesh.
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She never went to school,
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and at the age of 15
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she was married off to an abusive husband.
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He eventually abandoned her,
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leaving her with no income
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and two children
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who were not in school
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and were severely malnourished.
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With no one to turn to for help,
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she had no hope.
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?? joined BRAC's
graduation program in 2005.
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She received a dollar a week,
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two cows,
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enterprise training,
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and a weekly visit from a mentor.
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She began to build her assets,
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but most importantly
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she began to imagine a better future
for herself and her children.
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If you were visit
??'s village today,
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you would find that she runs
the largest general store in her area.
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She will proudly show you
the land she bought
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and the house she built.
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Since we began this program in 2002,
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two million Bangladeshi women
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have lifted themselves and their families
out of ultra poverty.
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That's almost nine million people.
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The program, which costs
500 dollars per household,
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runs for only two years,
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but the impact goes well beyond that.
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Researchers at the London
School of Economics
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found that even seven years
after entering the program,
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92 percent of participants
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had maintained or increased
their income, assets and consumption.
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Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee,
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the MIT economists who won
the Nobel Prize last year,
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led multi-country evaluations
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that identified graduation
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as one of the most effective ways
to break the poverty trap.
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But my father wasn't content
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to have found a solution
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that worked for some people.
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He always wanted to know
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whether we were being ambitious enough
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in terms of scale.
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So when we achieved
nationwide scale in Bangladesh,
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he wanted to know how we
could scale it globally.
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And that has to involve governance.
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Governments already dedicate
billions of dollars
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on poverty reduction programs,
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but so much of that money is wasted
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because these programs
either don't reach the poorest,
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and even the ones that do
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fail to have significant long-term impact.
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We are working to engage governments
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to help them to adopt and scale
graduation programs themselves,
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maximizing the impact
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of the billions of dollars
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they already allocate
to fight ultra poverty.
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Our plan is to help
another 21 million people
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lift themselves out of ultra poverty
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in eight countries over the next six years
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with BRAC teams on site
and embedded in each country.
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In July of 2019, my father was diagnosed
with terminal brain cancer
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and given four months to live.
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As he transitioned out of BRAC
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after leading the organization
for 47 years, he reminded us
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that throughout his life
he saw optimism triumph over despair,
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that when you light the spark
of self-belief in people,
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even the poorest
can transform their lives.
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My father passed away in December.
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He lit that spark for millions of people,
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and in the final days of his life
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he implored us to continue to do so
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for millions more.
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This opportunity is ours for the taking,
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so let's stop imagining
a world without ultra poverty
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and start building that world together.
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Thank you.
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(Applause)