DHAKA: Fazle Hasan Abed, founder and chairperson of BRAC, has been named this year's World Food Prize Laureate for his unparalleled achievement in building a unique, integrated development organization.

The Des Moines, Iowa-based foundation that hands out the annual award announced Abed's win on Wednesday. US Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced the prize at the State Department in Washington.

The 79-year-old will receive the award and $250,000 in prize money at an October ceremony.

"Poverty is a multidimensional thing. It's not just lack of income or lack of employment, it's also lack of opportunity, lack of education, lack of opportunity for health care and so on," Abed, 79, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from Bangladesh.

The Chairman of the World Food Prize Selection Committee and the first World Food Prize Laureate in 1987, Dr, M.S. Swaminathan, has praised Sir Fazle Hasan Abed as a “strategic thinker, and a man with a future vision.”

BRAC has spearheaded efforts to reduce infant mortality, educate children, empower women and fund microloan programs and other assistance to help lift the poor out of poverty.

The programs created for Bangladesh have expanded to 10 other nations.

Sir Fazle, who was knighted by the British Crown in 2009, has grown BRAC (formerly known as Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee) into the world’s largest non-governmental organization, which has helped raise at least 150 million people out of poverty.

The World Food Prize was created by Nobel laureate Norman Borlaug in 1986 to recognize scientists and others who have improved the quality and availability of food. The foundation that awards the $250,000 prize is based in Des Moines, Iowa.

BDST: 0957 HRS, JULY 02, 2015
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