2015考研英语阅读BRAC的商业一面

　　BRAC in business

　　BRAC的商业一面

　　Fazle Hasan Abed has built one of the world s mostcommercially-minded and successful NGOs;

　　法佐哈桑阿比德建立了世界上最具商业头脑的、最成功的NGO组织;

　　Smiling and dapper, Fazle Hasan Abed hardlyseems like a revolutionary. A Bangladeshieducated in Britain, an admirer of Shakespeareand Joyce, and a former accountant at Shell, he is the son of a distinguished family: hismaternal grandfather was a minister in the colonial government of Bengal; a great-uncle wasthe first Bengali to serve in the governor of Bengal s executive council. This week hereceived a very traditional distinction of his own: a knighthood. Yet the organisation hefounded, and for which his knighthood is a gong of respect, has probably done more than anysingle body to upend the traditions of misery and poverty in Bangladesh. Called BRAC, it isby most measures the largest, fastest-growing non-governmental organisation in theworldand one of the most businesslike.

　　面带微笑、衣冠楚楚的法佐哈桑阿比德怎么看也不像是一个革命者。这个在英国受的教育的孟加拉人是莎士比亚和乔伊斯的粉丝，曾在壳牌公司作过会计，家族显赫：外祖父是孟加拉殖民政府的一位部长;一位叔祖父是第一个为孟加拉行政会议长官做事的孟加拉人。本周，阿比德得到了加在自己头上的荣誉一个很有传统的称号：爵士头衔。然而，他创建的这个组织他被授予爵士头衔也是对这个组织的一种敬意 却颠覆了传统，改变了孟加拉一直以来的贫穷和困苦，而且在这方面作出的贡献可能比任何一个单一团体都要多。这个组织叫作BRAC，用绝大多数标准衡量都是世界上最大的、成长最迅速的非政府组织而且是最像企业的NGO之一。

　　Although Mohammed Yunus won the Nobel peace prize in 2006 for helping the poor, hisGrameen Bank was neither the first nor the largest microfinance lender in his nativeBangladesh; BRAC was. Its microfinance operation disburses about $1 billion a year. But thisis only part of what it does: it is also an internet-service provider; it has a university; itsprimary schools educate 11% of Bangladesh s children. It runs feed mills, chicken farms, teaplantations and packaging factories. BRAC has shown that NGOs do not need to be small andthat a little-known institution from a poor country can outgun famous Western charities. Ina book on BRAC entitled Freedom from Want, Ian Smillie calls it undoubtedly the largestand most variegated social experiment in the developing world. The spread of its workdwarfs any other private, government or non-profit enterprise in its impact ondevelopment.

　　虽然2006年获得诺贝尔和平奖的是穆罕默德尤努斯，但是他的格莱珉银行既不是孟加拉第一家也不是最大一家小额贷款银行;包揽这两个第一的是BRAC。它的小额贷款业务每年要发放10亿美元的贷款。但是这仅仅是它的部分业务：它还是互联网服务的供应商;它拥有一所大学;它办的小学解决了孟加拉11%孩子的受教育问题。它还经营饲料加工厂、养鸡场、茶叶种植场，还有包装厂。BRAC的成功表明NGO组织不一定要非常小，而且一个来自穷国、不为人知的机构可以干过西方著名的慈善机构。伊恩斯迈利在他专门写BRAC的书《彻底走出饥饿》中将这称作在发展中国家中无疑是最大规模且最为斑斓的社会实验。其社会工程的散播广度让其它任何私有的、政府的或是非盈利的企业都相形见拙，为社会发展带来的影响无人能及。

　　None of this seemed likely in 1970, when Sir Fazle turned Shell s offices in Chittagong into arefuge for victims of a deadly cyclone. BRACwhich started as an acronym, BangladeshRehabilitation Assistance Committee, and became a motto, building resources acrosscommunitiessurmounted its early troubles by combining two things that rarely gotogether: running an NGO as a business and taking seriously the social context of poverty.

　　但在 1970年却看不出这些，当时的法佐把壳牌公司在吉大港的办公址变成了避难所，接纳在一次恐怖龙卷风中的受害者。BRAC分别是孟加拉，康复，援助，委员会四个英文单词的首字母，并且演变成一句口号，建立跨社区资源克服了早期遇到的困难，办法是将两件很少能并置的东西结合到了一起：1. 像做生意一样运作一个NGO;2.认真对待贫穷的社会环境。

　　BRAC earns from its operations about 80% of the money it disburses to the poor . It calls a halt to activities that requireendless subsidies. At one point, it even tried financing itself from the tiny savings of the poor, though this drastic form of self-help proved a step too far: hardly anylenders or borrowers put themselves forward. From the start, Sir Fazle insisted on brutalhonesty about results. BRAC pays far more attention to research and continuous learningthan do most NGOs. David Korten, author of When Corporations Rule the World, called itas near to a pure example of a learning organisation as one is likely to find.

　　BRAC向穷人发放的钱款中有80%来自其自主经营。它会叫停那些无休止依赖捐助的项目，甚至还曾一度试着通过穷人的点滴存款来为自己融资，尽管这种极端的自助形式后被证明走的太远：几乎没有人主动来存钱或贷款。从一开始，法佐就坚持公开透明，对于经营业绩毫不隐瞒即使是很坏的业绩。BRAC对于调研和持续学习的注重要远胜于大多NGO组织。《当企业统治世界》的作者大卫科尔顿把BRAC称作可能是能够找到的最为纯粹的学习型组织。

　　What makes BRAC unique is its combination of business methods with a particular view ofpoverty. Poverty is often regarded primarily as an economic problem which can be alleviatedby sending money. Influenced by three liberation thinkers fashionable in the 1960sFrantz Fanon, Paulo Freire and Ivan IllichSir Fazle recognised that poverty in Bangladeshivillages is also a result of rigid social stratification. In these circumstances, communitydevelopment will help the rich more than the poor; to change the poverty, you have tochange the society.

　　BRAC之所以能够独树一帜，在于它的经营手法是与其看待贫穷的独特观点相结合的。贫穷在多数时候被首先看作是经济问题，可以通过发放金钱得到缓解。因为受到在1960年代很流行的三位解放式的思想家弗朗兹法农、保罗弗莱雷和伊凡伊里奇的影响，法佐认识到孟加拉国农村的贫穷问题是源于严格的社会层级。在这样的环境下，社区发展对于富人的帮助要胜于对穷人的帮助;为了改变贫穷状态，你必须改变社会。

　　That view might have pointed Sir Fazle towards left-wing politics. Instead, the revolutionaryimpetus was channelled through BRAC into development. Women became the institution sfocus because they are bottom of the heap and most in need of help: 70% of the children inBRAC schools are girls. Microfinance encourages the poor to save but, unlike the GrameenBank, BRAC also lends a lot to small companies. Tiny loans may improve the lot of anindividual or family but are usually invested in traditional village enterprises, like owning acow. Sir Fazle s aim of social change requires not growth but development . Only businesses create jobs and newforms of productive enterprise.

　　这样的观点本来可能会指引法佐走向左翼政治。而实际情况是，这种革命动力经BRAC的催化转换成了实实在在的发展。妇女成为了这个机构的主要关注对象，因为她们身处最底层，且最需要帮助：BRAC办的小学里70% 是女生。小额贷款鼓励穷人存钱，但是和格莱珉银行不同之处在于，BRAC也把钱借给小公司。小额贷款可能会改变一个人或是一个家庭的命运，但是这些钱通常都被投资在传统的农村致富项目上，比如养牛。法佐改变社会的目标靠的不是增长，而是发展。只有生意才能创造就业就会，才能产生新形式的、生产力强的企业。

　　After 30 years in Bangladesh, BRAC has more or less perfected its way of doing things and isspreading its wings round the developing world. It is already the biggest NGO in Afghanistan,Tanzania and Uganda, overtaking British charities which have been in the latter countries fordecades. Coming from a poor countryand a Muslim one, to bootmeans it is less likely tobe resented or called condescending. Its costs are lower, too: it does not buy large whiteSUVs or employ large white men.

　　经过在孟加拉30年的发展，BRAC对于自己这套业务之道已多少达到完善，并且正在将触角伸向其它第三世界国家。它已经超过英国的慈善机构，成为阿富汗、坦桑尼亚、乌干达这几个国家中最大的NGO组织，而后者已经在这些国家经营了几十载。因为是来自穷国还是一个穆斯林国家，这意味着BRAC不大可能遭人反感，或被形容为居高临下的恩施。它的花销也同样很低：没有大型的白色越野车，也没雇佣高大的白人。

　　Its expansion overseas may, however, present BRAC with a new problem. Robert Kaplan,an American writer, says that NGOs fill the void between thousands of villages and aremote, often broken, government. BRAC does this triumphantly in Bangladeshbut it is aBangladeshi organisation. Whether it can do the same elsewhere remains to be seen.

　　然而，BRAC在海外的扩张面临着一个新问题。美国作家罗伯特卡普兰说，NGO组织填补了一个遥远且经常失灵的政府和成千村庄之间的空白地带。BRAC在孟加拉胜利地做到了这一点但是它是孟加拉的组织。它在其它地方也能这样吗?还有待结果告诉我们。