ABOUT US

BRAC Development Institute (BDI), housed at BRAC University, seeks to promote research and build knowledge on practical solutions to problems of the poor in the global South. It takes as its starting point the hugely successful and massively scaled up development interventions of BRAC, Grameen Bank, Gonoshasthaya Kendra, and many others in immunization, oral rehydration therapy, family planning, health awareness, non-formal primary schooling, microfinance, etc. BDI intends to build knowledge around such exciting initiatives in the South, develop new ideas and strategies, pilot test these strategies, and furnish practitioners, policy makers and funders with important good practice lessons. More specifically, BDI will serve as a resource centre for issues surrounding poverty and the poor. Its core functions will include:

• creating knowledge: highlighting the innovative development experiences in the South and ensuring their visibility and voice in the global development discourse.
  


• convening experts: providing a space for practitioners, academics and policy makers to come together to focus on specific problems of the poor and develop new strategies and pathways.
  


• incubating ideas: field testing specific ideas through pilots, conducting rigorous qualitative and quantitative studies to understand processes and impacts, and distilling good practice lessons for adaptation and scale-up.
  


• advocating policy: collaborating with policy makers to adopt pro-poor development strategies.
  

BDI’s three overarching research themes – economic transformation, democratic governance, and gender empowerment – are founded in the core issue of finding practical solutions to the problems of the poor.

Economic Transformation

• Graduation from Extreme Poverty
• Building Markets
• Financial Services for the Poorest
• Graduation from Extreme Poverty
• Social Protection

Democratic Governance

• Social Accountability
• Citizenship and Democracy
• Access to Justice

Women’s Empowerment

• Pathways of Women’s Empowerment

WHO WE ARE
People profiles coming soon.