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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 ultrapoor.
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What it means to be ultrapoor
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 ultrapoor means
to be stripped of your dignity,
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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
were living in ultrapoverty 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 manmade crisis,
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these numbers spike astronomically higher.
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My father, Fazle Abed,
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 poorest of the poor,
my father realized
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that poverty 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 was immutable.
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Poverty, to them,
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 ultrapoverty
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 ultrapoverty,
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but also the ones most likely
to pull themselves and their families
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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, budget
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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
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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the women develop through
the close mentorship they receive.
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Let me tell you about Jorina.
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Jorina 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,
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 who were not in school
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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Jorina 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 Jorina'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 ultrapoverty.
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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 found
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that even seven years
after entering the program,
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92 percent of participants
had maintained or increased
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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 multicountry evaluations
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that identified graduation
as one of the most effective ways
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to break the poverty trap.
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But my father wasn't content
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to have found a solution
that worked for some people.
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He always wanted to know
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 governments.
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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
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
of the billions of dollars
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they already allocate
to fight ultrapoverty.
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Our plan is to help
another 21 million people
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lift themselves out of ultrapoverty
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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 after
leading the organization for 47 years,
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he reminded us that throughout his life,
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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
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 ultrapoverty
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and start building that world together.
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Thank you.