|
Articles by Dr. Muhammad Yunus
A national strategy for economic growth and poverty reduction By : Muhammad Yunus Globalization can help us overcome poverty quickly, if we can prepare our poor to participate in the globalize market. Most important thing is the participation. We must bring IT to the poor, to participate in and take advantage of globalization. If we leave our poor at the mercy of the global forces without preparing them to ride on the tidal waves of globalization, they'll get drowned by the globalization...Actions to be taken to reduce poverty by half by 2015 are well-known. Just pick the strategic ones and go for them with full force. Read More
"GRAMEEN IS LIKE MY MOTHER. SHE HAS GIVEN ME NEW LIFE." -- Muhammad Yunus Have you ever seen a bank with no telephones, no typewriters, no carpets, no loan agreements, and, mostly, run by women? Well, difficult as it is to believe, there is one: The Grameen Bank. Grameen is not noticeably ?bank-like?E But it does lend money, and it does get repaid with interest. Most of its borrowers are visited by the Bank staff in villages and, sorry to state this, borrowers who are not destitute are excluded, and so, usually, are men! Read more
Capitalism is Interpreted too Narrowly --Muhammad Yunus Many of the problems in the world remain unresolved because we continue to interpret capitalism too narrowly. In this narrow interpretation we create a one-dimensional human being to play the role of entrepreneur. We insulate him from other dimensions of life, such as, religious, emotional, political dimensions. He is dedicated to one mission in his business life ---- to maximize profit. He is supported by masses of one-dimensional human beings who back him up with their investment money to achieve the same mission. The game of free market works out beautifully with one-dimensional investors and entrepreneurs. We have remained so mesmerized by the success of the free market that we never dared to express any doubt about it. We worked extra hard to transform ourselves, as closely as possible, into the one-dimensional human beings as conceptualized in theory to allow smooth functioning of free market mechanism. Read more Is Grameen Bank Different From Conventional Banks? --Muhammad Yunus Grameen Bank methodology is almost the reverse of the conventional banking methodology. Conventional banking is based on the principle that the more you have, the more you can get. In other words, if you have little or nothing, you get nothing. As a result, more than half the population of the world is deprived of the financial services of the conventional banks. Conventional banking is based on collateral, Grameen system is collateral- free. Grameen Bank starts with the belief that credit should be accepted as a human right, and builds a system where one who does not possess anything gets the highest priority in getting a loan. Grameen methodology is not based on assessing the material possession of a person, it is based on the potential of a person. Grameen believes that all human beings, including the poorest, are endowed with endless potential. Read more
Ten Indicators to Assess Poverty level --Muhammad Yunus Every year Grameen Bank (GB) staff evaluate their work and check whether the socio-economic situation of GB members is improving. GB evaluates poverty level of the borrowers using ten indicators. A member is considered to have moved out of poverty if her family fulfills the following criteria: The family lives in a house worth at least Tk. 25,000 (twenty five thousand) or a house with a tin roof, and each member of the family is able to sleep on bed instead of on the floor. Family members drink pure water of tube-wells, boiled water or water purified by using alum, arsenic-free, purifying tablets or pitcher filters. All children in the family over six years of age are all going to school or finished primary school. Minimum weekly loan installment of the borrower is Tk. 200 or more. ...
Read more
Expanding Microcredit Outreach to Reach the Millennium Development Goal- Some Issues for Attention --Muhammad Yunus Microcredit Summit of 1997 set the goal to reach 100 million poorest families with Microcredit, along with other financial services, preferably through the women in those families by 2005. In the recently held Microcredit Summit +5 in NY, we have just reviewed the progress towards achieving this goal during the last five years. Figures compiled by the Microcredit Summit Campaign show that by the end of 2001, more that 54 million families around the world have benefited from Microcredit. Of this number, 26.8 million are among the poorest, or those who live under US $ 1 a day. This is impressive progress from 1997 when we could count only 7.6 million poorest families. Read more
Grameen Bank's Struggling (Beggar) Members Programme --Muhammad Yunus Grameen Bank was started in 1976 by Muhammad Yunus as an experimental project to combat rural poverty by providing credit to the very poor in 1983 Grameen Bank became established as a formal bank which provides small, collateral-free credit to rural poor rural people mainly women, for income-generating activities. As of July, 2005, Grameen Bank disbursed $5.0 billion in loans to 5.0 million borrowers, 96 per cent of them women, with a repayment rate of 99%. It June 2005 it lent out about $ 2.5 million-a-day (working day) in tiny loans averaging around $130. Read more
|
