Small can be beautiful, but to solve big problems in the world, it often takes large scale solutions. So argues Fazle H. Abed, founder and chairman of BRAC, Building Resources Across Communities. In this talk, he outlines the development and market perspectives that have enabled BRAC to expand and meet the needs in key areas including micro-finance, agriculture and education on a national scale. Known originally as the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee, BRAC was initiated in 1972 as a small-scale relief and rehabilitation project to help refugees after the Bangladesh Liberation War. It has now grown to a staff of over 30,000 with a membership of millions, making for an organizational network, which can touch every home in Bangladesh. In order to achieve and expand their activities, Abed outlines several important aspects of learning how to think big.

First, the groundwork must be laid to establish processes and develop checks and balances to ensure effectiveness. Then, unnecessary elements must be discarded to achieve an efficiency that will allow those processes to replicate and scale up. Abed details BRAC's successful oral hydration therapy program in Bangladeshi homes as an example of many of the lessons learned.

BRAC is about three quarters self-financing and is always seeking ways to recover costs. However, Abed still sees an important role for donors who can bring in a lot of expertise. Thinking big has led to programs in crop and livestock breeding, handicrafts, worker training, legal aid, drama, and education. Abed concludes with some reflections on the interplay between NGOs and government. He notes that private groups can serve the poor directly, but that in organizing citizens, they can create demands that must be met on a scale that only government can handle. Thus, it is equally important to help the government become responsive to the needs of its people. When this hand-off occurs, then BRAC can refocus on new areas and new ways to serve.