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| Muhammad
Yunus |
Grameen Bank director pioneers
"micro-loans" to the poor
Information technology can change the world. That was the message
Muhammad Yunus gave a near capacity campus crowd last spring.
Founder and managing director of the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh,
Yunus outlined three areas in which IT can play an immediate role
in ending poverty: integrating the poor in the process of globalization
by eliminating the middleman via e-commerce; fostering education,
knowledge and skill training; and making health services available
on demand.
Yunus gained international prominence two decades ago when he
did the unthinkable. A former Fulbright scholar and professor
of economics at Chittagong University in Bangladesh, Yunus and
his students noticed that local women needed money to expand their
bamboo chair-building businesses. He approached local banks on
their behalf but was turned away. The women, he was told, would
never be able to repay their loans. So he and his students did
what the established banks would not – loaned $26 to 42 village
women. The loans? They were paid back. And now, more than two
decades later, the Grameen Bank that emerged from that initial
transaction has 1,084 branches, 12,500 staff, and 2.1 million
borrowers in 37,000 villages.
"I walked around in the village every day, talking to people,
trying to make myself useful in some way, so that I could feel
that my intervention helped one human being overcome a day’s
problem," Yunus writes on his Web site. "I saw how people
suffered for not having even just tiny, tiny amounts of money."
In the late 1980s, Yunus began to think of ways in which he could
build on the network that his borrowers represented in order to
acclerate their progress towards a poverty-free world and also
improve Bangladesh’s overall economic performance. "In
the beginning, we got involved in leasing unutilized and underutilized
fishing ponds and irrigation pumps, such as deep tubewells,"
Yunus writes.
On any working day Grameen collects an average of $1.5 million
in weekly installments. Of the borrowers, 94 percent are women
and more than 98 percent of the loans are paid back – a recovery
rate higher than any other banking system. Grameen methods are
also applied in projects in 58 countries, including the U.S.,
Canada, France, The Netherlands, and Norway. Among numerous honors,
in 1997 Yunus received the International Activist Award, recognizing
those who have struggled to battle worldwide poverty.
"IT is the best friend the poor can get, if industry can
be nudged in this direction," Yunus told the Berkeley audience.
"We never imagined that some day we would be reaching hundreds
of thousands, let alone two million, borrowers. But the capabilities
and commitment of our staff and borrowers gave us the courage
to expand boldly. We hardly noticed when we reached milestones
like 100,000 borrowers, $1 billion lent, 2 million borrowers."
The Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest
of Society (CITRIS) sponsored Yunus's campus address. "We
were thrilled to be hosting Muhammad," said Ruzena Bajcsy,
CITRIS director. "His emphasis on work that has social impact
embodies the spirit of CITRIS. We see technology as a means of
transforming lives in a meaningful and positive way."
Find out more about the Grameen Bank at www.grameen-info.org.
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