after ten yoera of interviewing fazle abed and 45 years of market research for the biggest corporates in the world, i recommend two frameworks for valuibg how revolutionary and entrepreneurail fazle abed's approach was to human development economics and the business politics of multilareal aid and trade
the 5e's of microfrahising- if you live in the developed world you have probably heard of mcdonalds- it began when the mcdonalds family worked out in one location how parallel teams (5-8 people at busy times of say) could serve food fast, consistently 24/7, matching family's taste buds, affordably; they also worked out how to do it in 2 locations; but what made this a global business was replication to hundreds, thousands, hundred thousands. if you look at any service business team replication as well as property and supply chain is integral to market leadership potential as ensuring a positive cash flow model 365/24/7. however the reason a western corporation does this is not about sustainable community building. most if not all of the value the team serves does not stay with them or in the community but is extracted for the global owners. what makes abed's approach extraordinary- what if human development neds franchising solutions as focused as a global franchiser but where most or all of the vale produced stays the the front line servers and community building
this is where the 5 e's come in- actually for the first 30 years of village development the first 3e's
effective does/solves what is needed
efficient- can never be bettered on cost and quality- relentless double checking that the solution is staying ahead of any relevant change
expandable- as we have noted a franchise is just about one or two locations- nor can impatful poverty alleviation be- the first principle of fazle abed that i saw on 4 one hour videos of his lifework up to 2000 was - small may be beautiful but in bangladesh large scale is essential
the 4th and 5th e's only become relevant when you are helping people develop who for the first time can access electricity and can mobilise e- (digital)
-to understand why fazle abed always needed to explore the double loop of deeply local to humanly global we need to understand th5 market levels - on village, 200k vilages, national leadership, impacting the global market of aid and trade, playing in the worldwide or digital/virtual not just real world of compound goodwill
in more detail- consider the first 3e's
two thirds of humans are asians and shocking even when western man raced to the moon in 1960s most of world's people still had no access to electricity -exact figures dont matter to appreciate the tranformational challenge the era of mainly 8 empires had trapped humanity in with 2 worldwars by 1945
half of people without electricuity were on asian continent
just over 10% of people - in africa
up to 5% in latin and central america
-add in some rest of world others and two thirds of human race hadn't yet access to what peoples in deveoped countries took for granted from the first 18 decades od nachines and humans-
from 1970 to 1990s networks of fazle abed empowering girl villagers only had the first 3 e's to build with- how fazle abed selected hi-trust partners to apply the coming of electricity by solar and e- by mobilephones requires detailed studies - eg what came first second third- why did each new partner see a win-win-win; how did poorest village girls networks ensure their sdg purposes never got lost in brac's brand architecture - more coming soon
in population terms bangladesh started as a top 10 country and the very poorest
miraculously for human development - continental south china )the nation with one fifth of human beings) had the same urgent village problems- over and over bangladesh and chinese village girls shared live saving microfranchises - they explored the 5 e's like no other network- bottom up empowerment coalitions are not political in the way western empires frame media and legislatures - it would be a pity not to learn from the gretest everr human development miracle just because no politcal party in your place has people who started with as little in life as the asian village girl of 1970- you cant really be authentic to metoo or lives matter advances of the human lot unless you are prepared to accompany a baby asian gir's introduction to mother earth
