Asif Saleh, Executive Director of BRAC — a Bangladeshi organisation that began as a small relief
effort in post-independence Bangladesh and grew into one of the world's largest development
organisations — has been named in the 2026 TIME100 Philanthropy list. He is the first Bangladeshi to
appear on the list since its launch in 2025, a milestone that reflects Bangladesh's growing voice in
shaping the global development agenda.
Published annually by TIME magazine, the TIME100 Philanthropy list recognises 100 of the world’s
most influential individuals shaping the future of giving and social impact. The 2026 edition honours
leaders, philanthropists, and innovators advancing new approaches to development, humanitarian
action, and systemic change worldwide.
Asif Saleh was recognised in the ‘Leaders’ category, alongside celebrated philanthropists Rajiv J.
Shah, Idris Elba & Sabrina Dhowre Elba, and Lionel Messi, for advancing BRAC’s locally led
development model and for championing a more equitable and sustainable approach to international
aid. In its profile, TIME highlighted BRAC’s diversified funding strategy and community-driven
philosophy amid major global aid cuts and growing debate over the future of development financing.
"Following last year's drastic cuts in foreign aid spending, some people have called for a better model for
global aid. BRAC, and its executive director Asif Saleh, might have an answer." — TIME
The recognition carries particular significance for Bangladesh. BRAC was founded in 1972 in the
immediate aftermath of the Liberation War, with a mission to rebuild a war-torn nation. Over more than
five decades, it has pioneered a model of development rooted in the lived realities of Bangladeshi
communities — one that has since been replicated across Asia and Africa. Today, BRAC's global
influence is, in many ways, an extension of lessons first learned in the Bangladesh context.
TIME noted that BRAC has navigated global funding shocks through a hybrid model combining
grants, investments, community contributions, microfinance, and social enterprises — an approach
shaped in large part by Bangladesh's own experience of building resilience in the face of poverty,
natural disaster, and resource constraint.
“This recognition belongs to the people across Asia and Africa who have partnered with us over the past half
a century, and our staff, who work tirelessly to improve the lives of the people in their communities every
day,” — Asif Saleh
TIME also highlighted BRAC’s founding philosophy of treating communities as active participants in
development rather than passive recipients of aid.
"Development is not charity. Charity is something that you give to people, where people are passive
recipients of it. And what we promote is the opposite, where people are active participants in everything
that we do." — Asif Saleh
Reflecting on the broader global context, he said, “We are at an inflection point as a world. Extreme
poverty is rising again, conflict is fracturing supply chains, and an affordability crisis is pushing millions
back below the poverty line. These are symptoms of a world that has not been ambitious enough
about equality. We cannot respond with more of the same. What this moment demands is a
fundamentally greater ambition: to build a world that is genuinely more equal for all. It also demands a
socially just way of pursuing it: one that recognises people as the agents of their own change, not its
beneficiaries.”
Bangladesh has long been internationally recognised as a development success story — achieving
remarkable gains in poverty reduction, gender equity, and human development despite significant
odds. This recognition of a Bangladeshi leader and a Bangladeshi-origin institution on one of the world's most prominent philanthropy lists affirms that Bangladesh is not merely a recipient of global
development thinking, but an active contributor to it.