This is a ranking from FP magazine:
- Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC)... major operations in microcredit and poverty alleviation
- Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (major operations in improving global health, eradicating poverty, improving American education)
- World Vision (major operations in food aid and emergency assistance)
- Oxfam International (major operations in poverty alleviation and debt relief)
- Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres)...major operations in establishing healthcare services in poor countries and providing emergency medical care
I am pretty much surprised that a NGO from Bangladesh is the most powerful development NGO in the world (or may be I have not heard about its good deeds!). A little bio about BRAC:
Founded in 1972 to assist refugees after Bangladesh’s war of liberation, BRAC, formerly the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee, is the world’s largest nongovernmental organization. It boasts a $4.6 billion portfolio in microloans, an army of healthcare volunteers providing care to 80 million Bangladeshis, and a network of 52,000 schools serving 1.5 million students. As one of Bangladesh’s largest single employers, BRAC is often referred to as a minigovernment, responsible in part for many of the country’s economic and health gains. It is estimated that, coupled with a government immunization drive, the organization’s antidiarrhea efforts in rural Bangladesh have helped cut child mortality for children under 5 from 25 to 7 percent over the past three decades. Its contraception drives and pioneering microlending have also been credited with lowering fertility rates and reducing poverty. Inspired by these results, BRAC recently extended its programs to sub-Saharan Africa and Afghanistan.
