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Mr. Yunus Goes to Queens

The microfinance pioneer and Nobel Prize winner Muhammad Yunus is testing the waters to see if his approach to fighting poverty can work in the United States — but skeptics are not sure he will succeed.

According to City Room, a blog operated by The New York Times, last week in Queens Mr. Yunus attended a ribbon-cutting ceremony to celebrate the opening of the first office of Grameen Bank America. The office, which officially opened in January, so far has made small loans to 175 people and expectations are high.

"Over the next year, all eyes in the domestic microfinance world are on Grameen to see whether it can attain the level of success in the United States that it has achieved in the developing world," writes Amanda M. Fairbanks, a Times reporter.

Jonathan Morduch, an economist at New York University's Wagner Graduate School, praises Mr. Yunus's move to New York, but wonders how much he can accomplish. "Ultimately in America, the biggest holes are serving working Americans. A lot are not in situations where group lending makes sense," he told City Room.

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