لخّصلي

More than 2.5 billion people in the world earn less than
$2.50 a day. None of the developmental economics theories have helped change this situation. Less than $2.50 a day means that these unfortunate people have been living with- out clean water, sanitation, sufficient food to eat, or a proper place to sleep. In Southeast Asia alone, more than 500 million people live under these circumstances. In the past, almost every effort to help the very poor has been either a complete failure or at best partially successful. As Dr. Yunus argues, in every one of these instances, the poor will push the very poor out!
In 1972, Dr. Muhammad Yunus, a young economics professor trained at Vanderbilt, returned home to Bangladesh to take a position at Chittagong University. Upon his ar- rival, he was struck by the start contrast between the devel- opmental economics he taught in the classroom and the abject poverty of the villages surrounding the university. Dr. Yunus witnessed more suffering of the poor when, in 1974, inclement weather wiped out food crops and resulted in a widespread and prolonged famine. The theories of devel- opmental economics and the traditional banking institutions, he concluded, were completely ineffectual for lessening the hunger and homelessness among the very poor of that region.
In 1976, Dr. Yunus and his students were visiting the poorest people in the village of Jobra to see whether they could directly help them in any way. They met a group of craftswomen making simple bamboo stools. After paying for their raw materials and financing, the women were left with a profit ofjust two cents per day. From his own pocket, Dr. Yunus gave $27 to be distributed among 42 craftswomen and rick- shaw (human-driven transport) drivers. Little did he know that this simple act of generosity was the beginning of a global revolution in microfinance that would eventually help millions of impoverished and poor begin a transition from destitution to economic self-sufficiency. Dr. Yunus was con- vinced that a nontraditional approach to financing is the only way to help the very poor to help themselves.

The Grameen Project would soon follow—it officially be- came a bank under the law in 1983. The poor borrowers own 95 percent of the bank, and the rest is owned by the Bangladeshi government. Loans are financed through de- posits only, and there are 8.35 million borrowers, of which 97 percent are women. There are over 2,500 branches serv- ing around 81,000 villages in Bangladesh with a staff of more than 22,000 people. Since its inception, the bank has dispersed more than $10 billion, with a cumulative loan re- covery rate of 97.38 percent. The Grameen Bank has been profitable every year since 1976 except three years and pays returns on deposits up to 100 percent to its members. 2 In 2006, Dr. Yunus and the Grameen Bank shared the Nobel Peace Prize for the concept and methodology of microfi- nance, also known as micro-credit or microloans.’