Grameen Bank, Bangladesh
By Eliza Deland and Cameron Burnham
“Yunus saw the banking system as anti-poor, anti-illiterate and anti-women. He set out to reverse all three.”
Professor
Yunus
Professor Muhammad Yunus: Founder of the Grameen Bank
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Muhammad
was born in 1940 and the third of fourteen children, five of who died in
infancy. He was well aware of the issues facing the poor. |
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Revolutionary
in his actions, he wanted to help the poor who lived near the university
where he taught economics in Bangladesh. |
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When
he asked local banks to give money to the poor, they were hesitant because
of lack of collateral so he took out a personal loan that he used to loan
to the poor people thus the system of micro lending evolved. |
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Due
to the increasing popularity of such lending, he formally created his own
bank called the Grameen Bank in 1983 thus changing the rural economics and
social development forever. |
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Grameen
in the Bengali language means rural. |
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Grameen
Bank was started for the benefit of the poor. |
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Before
the Grameen Bank was created the only banks that existed were commercial
banks or moneylenders, neither of these options were beneficial to the
poor in anyway. |
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Between
the years of 1985 and 1994 the number of branches expanded by 462%, the
number of loan centers grew by 831% and the number of borrowers grew by
1185%. |
Main Objectives
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To extend banking privileges to the poor men and women in the community. |
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To stop the exploitation of the poor by the moneylenders. |
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To create opportunities for self-employment for the large number of unemployed who live in the city of Bangladesh. |
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To bring the disadvantaged, mostly poor women, a simple system of banking. |
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To eliminate the trend of low income and less savings
to a trend of more income and greater savings. |
Women: GB main members
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This quote by Yunus sums up his target of women as GB’s main borrowers, “Women experience hunger and poverty in much more intense ways than they are experienced by men. Women have to stay ‘home’ and manage the family with virtually nothing to manage with. Given the opportunity to fight against poverty and hunger women turn out to be natural and better fighters than men.” |
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Women’s earnings are spent on children and then the household, which brings more qualitative benefits to ALL members in the household. |
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Repercussions of women as borrowers results in an escalation of aggression and violence towards women. |
GB in Today’s
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There are 2.4 million borrowers today, 95% of whom are women. |
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There are 1,175 branches of the Grameen Bank. |
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It provides services in 41,000 villages, which covers 60% of the villages in Bangladesh. |
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The bank staffs 14,000 people. |
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Last year it provided US$380 million in 3.62 million loans. |
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Its borrowers through shares own 92% of the bank and the government owns the remaining 8%. |
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54% of borrowers have crossed the poverty line; another 24% are very close. |
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There are 168 GB replications in the world, one new one is created somewhere in the world each week. In our lifetime we will see a significant decrease in the worlds poverty. |
Want to find out more about the Grameen Bank? (sources)
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http://www.action.org/summaryp.html |
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http://www.garmeen-info.org/bank |
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http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/IMF_WB/Grameen_50YIE.html |
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Holcombe, Susan. Managing to Empowerment. Atlantic Heights, New Jersey. Zed books Ltd, 1995. |
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Rahman, Aminur. Women and Micro credit in Rural Bangladesh. Boulder, Colorado. Western View Press, 1999. |