BRAC at 50: Reflecting on 50 years of BRAC contributions to development knowledge and practice

As a Global South NGO from Bangladesh that has become one of the world’s largest NGOs, its 50th anniversary was a momentous occasion for BRAC. This Special Issue celebrates BRAC’s contributions to development thinking and practice across five decades, highlighting BRAC’s impact – and the challenges it has faced in achieving this – across several programmes, ranging from humanitarian response to women’s and young people’s empowerment and its quest for inclusive poverty reduction in Bangladesh and beyond. Investing heavily in a culture of continuous learning, we explore how this enables BRAC to understand and improve its programmes, ground these in local contexts and communities, and build external partnerships through which to spread its impact, influence, and knowledge globally. We hope this Special Issue will spread BRAC’s strategy of working closely with poor and marginalised communities, of learning, evolving, and embracing mistakes, and of igniting hope over fate and despair.