Sir Fazle Hasan Abed, founder and chairperson of Brac, was announced as the winner of World Food Prize 2015 on Wednesday for his outstanding contribution to enhancing food production and distribution around the world.
Ambassador Kenneth M Quinn, president of the World Food Prize Foundation, announced this year’s winner at a ceremony at the US Department of State in Washington, DC. The prize, which includes an award of $250,000, has been referred to as the Nobel prize for food and agriculture.
“Being selected to receive the 2015 World Food Prize is a great honour,” Sir Abed said in a statement. “I thank the foundation for its recognition of the work of Brac, which I have had the privilege to lead over the last 43 years.
“The real heroes in our story are the poor themselves and, in particular, women struggling with poverty. In situations of extreme poverty, it is usually the women in the family who have to make do with scarce resources. When we saw this at Brac, we realised that women needed to be the agents of change in our development effort.”
Announcing Sir Abed’s name as the winner of the prize, Ambassador Quinn said: “At a time when the world confronts the great challenge of feeding over seven billion people, Sir Fazle Abed and Brac have created the preeminent model being followed around the globe on how to educate girls, empower women and lift whole generations out of poverty.
“For this monumental achievement, Sir Fazle truly deserves recognition as the 2015 World Food Prize Laureate.”
Dr MS Swaminathan, chair of the World Food Prize selection committee and the first World Food Prize laureate in 1987, described Sir Abed as a “strategic thinker, and a man with a future vision,” The Guardian reported yesterday.
Sir Abed founded Brac – formerly known as Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee – in 1972 as a relief operation to help Bangladesh recover from the destruction caused by the 1971 Liberation War and a tropical cyclone.
It is now widely credited as a major contributor to Bangladesh’s achievement in halving poverty and hunger levels since 1990, in line with the UN’s Millennium Development Goals, through its sustained efforts in the fields of poverty and hunger eradication and food security.
Besides Bangladesh, Brac currently operates in Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Liberia, Sierra Lione, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda and Haiti, working with the local communities to eradicate poverty.
“Taking people out of extreme poverty can be done, but you need the commitment to do it in every country throughout the world,” said Sir Abed.