A pioneer role
Muhammad Yunus, recipient of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize
The originator of microfinance
In 1976, when he was teaching economy at the University of Chittagong in Bangladesh, Muhammad Yunus was struck by the gap between the theories he was teaching and the situations faced by the villagers living nearby.
After the war of independence, Bangladesh suffered famine and extreme poverty. In order to help the local populations, Prof Yunus tried to urge banks to grant loans to the poorest, but without success.
He then decided to become personally involved in the fight against poverty, based on the principle that a minimum amount of money was needed to start up and to free oneself from the grip of moneylenders. He thus lent 27 dollars of his own money to 42 women from the village of Jobra.
The founding of Grameen Bank
In renewing the experiment, he observed that – contrary to a widespread notion – poor people are very reliable in repaying their loans. Not having been able to convince traditional banks to open up towards the poor by adapting their methods, he created the Grameen Bank, with the support of the bangladeshi government.
On 13 October 2006, Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Bank were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their pioneering role in fighting poverty.
The path of Social Business
More recently, Prof Yunus has worked out the concept of "social business", based on his experience with the Bogra yogurt factory, developed in 2006 in partnership with Danone.
Prof Yunus convinced other major industrial groups to follow in the same path: Veolia, Adidas, BASF, Otto Gmbh, etc. Several major universities and business schools have established specialised chairs in Social Business.
Grameen Bank,
Grameen Bank (or the "bank of the villages" in Bengali) was created in 1983 in Bangladesh with the support of bangladeshi government to help the poor to escape from the grip of moneylenders, and to launch income-generating activities. It offers them small loans, without collateral, along with a weekly repayment scheme.
Today it has 8 million borrowers, 95% of whom are women. 95% of Grameen Bank’s capital is owned by its borrowers.
More on Grameen Bank, in figures
Grameen Trust
Created in 1989 in the form of a not-for-profit non-governmental organisation, Grameen Trust has the mission of spreading the Grameen model around the world.
To date, more than 150 partners in 40 countries are supported through the “Grameen Bank Replication Program”. When there is no existing institution, the organisation starts up a programme following one of the following two models: “Build, Operate and Transfer” and “Build, Operate and Own”.
In addition to this support to microfinance institutions, Grameen Trust conducts training sessions, such as the “Grameen Dialogues”, and publishes a newsletter in order to promote microcredit.
Yunus's speech about SB
Pr. Yunus story
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