The 2026 TIME100 Philanthropy list has Asif Saleh, Executive Director of BRAC, a Bangladeshi organization that started out as a modest humanitarian effort in post-independence Bangladesh and developed into one of the biggest development organizations in the world. He is the first person from Bangladesh to be listed since the list’s inception in 2025, a significant accomplishment that illustrates Bangladesh’s increasing influence over 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.
Along with renowned benefactors Rajiv J. Shah, Idris Elba & Sabrina Dhowre Elba, and Lionel Messi, Asif Saleh was honored in the “Leaders” category for promoting BRAC’s locally led development model and advocating for a more sustainable and equitable approach to international aid. In its story, TIME emphasized BRAC’s community-driven ideology and diversified funding strategy in the face of significant global aid cuts and mounting discussion 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
“We are at an inflection point as a world,” he remarked, considering the larger global environment. Conflict is shattering supply chains, extreme poverty is on the rise once more, and millions of people are falling back into poverty due to an affordability problem. These are signs of a society that has not set high enough standards for equality. We are unable to reply with more of the same. Building a world that is truly more equal for everyone is what this moment demands—a fundamentally higher goal. Additionally, it necessitates a socially equitable approach to its pursuit, one that acknowledges individuals as the authors of their own transformation rather than 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.
