In what unique and powerful way has the grameen bank helped poor people in the developing world?

GRAMEEN BANK and also MICROFINANCE

Muhammad Yunus The Grameen financial institution in Bangladesh pioneered the idea of offering out micro-loans in between $27 and also $500 to poor people for this reason they can start or expand small businesses together a street vending operations, cabinet telephone rentals or small cottage industries to traction themselves out of poverty. If loans room paid back borrowers qualify for larger loans.

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The Grameen bank has received worldwide attention for offering loans to ultra-poor ladies to start up "micro-enterprises." the founder Muhammad Yunus has actually been praised in ~ home and abroad by politicians and also financiers together the "banker to the poor." "Grameen" is the Bangla (Bengali ) word because that "Village” or “Rural.” proponents for microfinance to speak the concept and system it has achieved much. They to speak that prolonging credit to the bad has fostered little businesses, helped promote gender equality, lifted incomes, and improved access to food and also education for some of the world"s most desperate citizens.

Microfinance has actually excelled at getting a most money come a most borrowers quickly, disrupting established networks of power and patronage in the process. In 2009, an ext than 128 million of the world"s poorest family members took microloans - up from just 7.6 million in 1997 - and also investment funds for microfinance totaled end $11 billion, according to a Microcredit Summit Campaign.

Jacques Attali composed in the Christian science Monitor, “Grameen financial institution is unrivaled in the human being of classic banks. The workers care tremendously about helping the poor, every spending practically a year living among the population they space going come serve. Through the organization being for this reason intimately associated with the precepts that its founder, the leadership transition has to be taken on with great care.”

Bangladesh’s federal government owns 25 percent of Grameen while customers hold the balance. It lends to its 8.35 million clients, of which 97 percent space women and more than 112,000 beggars, making use of funds indigenous its deposits. The financial institution employs 26,000 people and has 2,565 branches throughout the South oriental nation, whereby the Asian development Bank estimates almost fifty percent the populace of 144 million stays on much less than $1.25 a day. Grameen has lent $10.3 billion due to the fact that it began operations in 1976 and also had a loan recovery rate of 97 percent as of the finish of February, follow to the lender’s website.

Book: The Price that a Dream: The Story of the Grameen Bank and also the Idea the is help the bad to readjust Their stays by David Bornstein (1998, Simon & Schuster).

Mohammed Yunus and also Early background of the Grameen Bank

The Grameen bank was started by Mohammed Yunus, a Bangladeshi financial professor. Yunas was born in 1940 in Chittagong. The attended Chittagong college in Bangladesh and also received a Ph.D. Native Vanderbilt University. During his continue to be in the United claims in the 1960s he was influenced and inspired by the idealism, civil legal rights movement, and also student activism that saw and also experienced. He embraced Martin Luther King together a hero. Yunus has actually said that his most an effective memory native his youth to be leaving southern Asia to attend a young Scouts human being Jamboree.

Yunus returned to Bangladesh in 1971 ~ it became independent and also took a position at Chittagong University, where he motivated students to close your books and also study village life. ~ the great flood and famine in Bangladesh in 1975 Yunus started visiting villages near Chittagong.

Yunus reportedly got the because that Grameen idea one afternoon in 1976. He took a walk come a town a mile or so away from Chittagong University, whereby was head the the department by that time, and also he ran into an old woman selling bamboo stools who said she made just two cent a work from she business. When Yunus asked her why he made for this reason little. The mrs told Yunus she required loans come buy materials and also said the person who lent she money to be the same human who purchase her last product. The buyer bought her stools in ~ an artificially low price, maintaining the woman perpetually in debt, in a sort of town version the indentured servitude. . Yunus gave the woman and also 47 various other villagers loan of $27. All of them paid him back.

Yunus and also his students did surveys in various other villages and found the villagers had virtually no funding to invest in their business and also were thus quickly manipulated by moneylenders and middlemen who bought their products. Yunus initially offered out the loans in one town from a tea stall. Over time the system advanced into micro-financing.

History that the Grameen Bank

Grameen headquarters convinced that huge scale breakthrough projects favored by the unified States and the Soviet Union did tiny to help ordinary poor people, Yunas began arguing that that advance money could far better spen 보다 it was providing loans for civilization to usage in the informal economy. Yunas outlined the Grameen financial institution scheme in his book offer Them credit (1970s). Yunas pitched his idea to the Bangladesh government. Public representative scoffed a his idea of loan money come the negative without collateral. Unable to gain support Yunus made decision to act as the guarantor for human being who took the end loans in 100 or so villages. Everyone paid the back.

The Grameen financial institution was unofficially founded in 1977. In 1978, Yunus and also some the his graduate students opened up the very first branches the the BANK. The financial institution expanded by operation from unique windows in standard banks.

In 1983 Yunus formally founded the Grameen bank. In the year the financial institution became a different entity, v 86 branches, 58,000 clients and support indigenous the joined Nations, the Ford structure and the Bangladesh Bank. As time walk the financial institution grew really quickly and also received global attention. Through 1988, it had actually 501 branches and also 490,000 borrowers.

explicate the Grameen financial institution headquarters in Dhaka in the mid 1990s, David Bornstein composed in Atlantic Monthly, the office has "no receptionist, no carpets, no elevators, and few telephones. The rooms room equipped with ceiling fans, manual typewriters, paperweights and stacks the ledgers. Only the computer room ~ above the fifth floor has air conditioning."

as of 1998, the Grameen bank had 1,050 branches and had loaned much more than $2 billion. The employed 10,000 university and high school graduates scattered throughout the country.By 2000 Grameen had provided out loan to 2.4 million borrowers, largely women, in 39,000 villages. Together of 2001, the bank had given out $3 billion precious of loans in Bangladesh.

In 1986, bill Clinton, then branch of Arkansas, invited Yunus come the unified States. Clinton wanted to establish a similar banking mechanism in Arkansas. The 2 men ended up being friends. End the years Yunus has won a variety of awards consisting of 1993 care Humanitarian award for advancement and the 1994 civilization Food Prize.

Philosophy of the Grameen Bank and Skepticism the Its Success

Yunus in ~ the people Economic Forum 2009 yearly Meeting The viewpoint of the Grameen financial institution is simple: that the widespread ease of access of credit deserve to solve countless problems in undeveloped areas and that individuals in the undeveloped locations often have the finest ideas and also the many efficient way to construct them.

The target of Grameen-style program is to get local world to run businesses and keep castle going ~ the help agencies have left. Grameen financial institution proverb is: "If you offer a guy a fish you feed him for a day. If girlfriend teach him to fish, you feed him because that a lifetime.” another objective of Grameen-style program is to improve the condition of women and aid them begin businesses so they delay having children and don"t contribute to overpopulation.

Yunas said Atlantic Monthly, "You look in ~ the tiniest village, and also the tiniest human being in that village, a really capable person, a really intelligent person. You only have actually to develop the ideal environment to assistance these human being so that they can adjust their lives."

before the Grameen bank came along villagers were compelled to lend money from moneylenders who charge together high interest rates (10 to 20 percent a week) the all the profits a villager makes ends increase going to the moneylender, This means villagers have no money to get ahead or boost their her businesses. Yunus has referred to as the moneylender catch "a type of external inspection labor."

Yunas emerged three key criteria because that borrowers: 1) the loans had actually to it is in repaid ~ above time: 2) only the poorest, landless villagers to be eligible ;and 3) most of the money would be lent come women."

Erika Kinetz created in AP in 2011, “Evaluations i beg your pardon benchmark results against control groups so much haven"t uncovered evidence the microloans alone are sufficient to solve the complex problems the the deep poor. Still, numerous warn the a human being without microfinance would certainly be much worse off.”

"Microcredit is a an excellent thing but has been oversold," stated Yale professor Dean Karlan, that authored one together study. "It will certainly not raise world out that poverty, certainly not single-handedly. However there are benefits that room important."

Grameen Bank and Women

village women that Bangladesh many of the Grameen loan are offered to ladies (94 percent at one point). There room several reasons for this. Females are much better at repaying the loans climate men, who frequently squander your money top top risky deals, drink or gambling. Due to the fact that they are usually responsible for raising the family and also keeping track of the household finances women typically put your money right into things that benefit the whole family and don"t rubbish it. Prior to the women get the loans they are often given lectures ~ above the importance of repayments. Many of the females who get loans pull their households out of poor in 5 years or less.

Yunus told Newsweek, "Initially us tried to uncover equal number of men and women borrowers...Then us realized than countless positive things can be completed by loan to women because when a woman"s earnings increases, the instant beneficiaries space the children. A woman looks to the future with a to plan strategy to enhance the household situation. Guys don"t pay attention to together things. Due to the fact that women performed better in bringing changes to the family, we made decision to provide priority come women."

together for the husband of ladies borrowers Yunas stated "At first...men ere angry v their wives for managing money. Us tried to show them the it is good if the wife contributes to the family members income: that way the family might move out of poor faster...So the the husband does no feel humiliated the his mam gets the money, we have sessions through him and encourage the wife to talk about things through him therefore he doesn"t feeling left out.”

Grameen Bank additionally pursued a social agenda v its females borrowers, After many women obtain their money castle recite the following pledge: "We shall plan to store our family members small. We shall keep totally free from the curse of dowry. Us shall not practice child marriage." In Bangladesh double as countless Grameen financial institution women use contraceptives together the national average.

Grameen financial institution Loans

town women in India Grameen loans vary from $60 to $280 and average around $180. Castle are typically paid back in one year in fifty same installments. Regardless of interest prices as high as 20 percent, the bank claims a 97 percent repayment rate, a rate comparable to chase Manhattan. They achieve this also though the borrowers have no or little property and also can"t sell anything as collateral.

One reason for the bank’s success is its device of self-regulation, Everyone who takes out a loan becomes a member the a five-person take out loan group, a 40-member center and attend meetings every week. Groups share obligation for the loan repayments and defaults.

If one member the the group stops working to salary the entire group loses your loan. This means that members are mindful to pick new members who, there is no fail, will certainly pay back their loans. If all five members repay their loan quickly they are guaranteed access to credit transaction for the remainder of your lives,

Loan programs operation by help agencies have actually not to be as effective as those run strictly choose a bank. When the Grameen bank’s attention rates---often 25 percent or more---may seem high they room infinitely far better than prices of up to 1,000 percent charged by neighborhood moneylenders and also loan sharks.

Microfinancing and also Businesses started with Grameen bank Loans

Fruit stand in Egypt Borrowers have used Grameen loan money to start home-based bamboo weaving businesses, repair radios, buy weaver"s looms, pay because that seeds and fertilizer, process mustard oil, buy dairy product cows, cultivate jackfruits, offer cookware door to door, profession brass, offer popsicles, construct silkworm sheds, rice bowl rice, beginning sewing businesses, sell cosmetics from town to village, sell milk indigenous cows, and sell medicines to neighbors and also friends.

numerous women purchase Nokia cellular phones through their loans. By marketing calls at about 10 cents a minute they deserve to make about $2.00 a day ($700 a year) in profit and pay earlier the loan in 3 years. Rwanda’s farming minister Agnes Kalibata, , who has actually helped set up micro-financing because that female farmers and given them access to markets and co-operatives,

Micro-financing bodies room playing a crucial role in setup up alternate energy sources in villages. Praddep Dadhich that the power research institute TERU told Reuters, “They room reaching human being who otherwise have restricted or no accessibility to electricity and also depend ~ above kerosene, diesel or firewood because that their power needs...The applications not only accomplish these needs, they additionally improve the quality of life and also reduce the carbon footprint.”

Grameen Phones

do a satellite dish in Nepal cabinet phones were one of the moving pressures behind the Nobel-prize-winning Grameen micro-financing system. In Bangladesh, Grameenphone consists 98 percent the the country and also serves the bulk of the country’s cell phone users. Phones arisen for the occurring world offer for as tiny as $20 a piece.

GrameenPhone Ltd was started in 1996 in Bangladesh through the aid of a Norwegian telephone agency after a Bangladeshi expat living in the U.S. Called Iqbal Quadir posed a inquiry to Grameen founder Muhammed Yunus: if friend can offer a micro-loan to a woman to purchase a cow why can not you offer her one come invest in a phone. The firm focused on 2 sectors: 1) city customers and 2) village phone schemes in i beg your pardon people---mostly town women---took out tiny loans to acquisition cell phones and they in turn sold time on cell phones come others.

GrameenPhone Ltd do a pre-tax profit of $27 million after only 5 years in business and also attracted almost $200 million in invest as that 2002. By the mid 2000s, the mechanism employed 250,000 “phones ladies”, who offered microcredit loans to buy specially-designed cabinet phone kits costing about $150 outfit v special long-lasting batteries. The ladies often operate in towns as phone operators who charge a small commission to make and receive calls. By the late 2000s, GrameemPhone to be pulling in annual revenues the $1 billion a year.

similar systems have actually been collection up in Indonesia, Rwanda, Uganda, Cameroon and other countries. Quadir, that is now at MIT, called the brand-new York times magazine, “Poor countries are bad because they space wasting their resources. One source is time, another is opportunity. Allows say you have the right to walk end to five people who live in your prompt vicinity, it is one thing. Yet if you’re connected to one million people, your possibilities space endless.”

Profits and also Benefits from Grameen financial institution Loans

Mayan woman making souvenirs The loans have the right to make the difference between scrounging for a solitary meal and having 3 square meals. With their profits, some women have actually been able come send their daughters come university. Some civilization have earned sufficient money come buy land. One bank director told Reuters. “Our key success is the we have been may be to lug the females in negative families the end of the warm fields, placed them in gainful work and also infuse part hope in your lives.”

The Grameen Bank likewise helps villagers to obtain loans come buy medicine, pay for their children"s education and build houses, they are likewise involved in setup up village-based health-care, pension and also insurance systems.

The Grameen financial institution make a profit yet some regarded the profits as no "real" since Grameen receives funding at low rates from international help groups and the financial institution of Bangladesh. Beginning in the 1990s Grameen started borrowing money at interest rates paid by normal companies and also was authorize bonds.

Grameen retained going ~ the 1991 cyclone-flood. It experienced in 1998 when a irreversible flood destroyed the enterprise of many people and also made them unable to pay earlier their loans. At that time Grameen was required to lend $100 millon from the World bank to continue to be afloat.

Influence the the Grameen Bank and Growth the Microfinancing

Grameen financial institution has launched a transformation in the method towards advance and noted a model for "microcredit" programs almost everywhere the 3rd World. By 2001 the Grameen bank idea had actually spawned 7,000 comparable banks.

tranquility Corps workers have set up credit unions which begin with one farmer being given crop and also fertilizer loans. If the loan is payment back, various other villagers obtain loans. The idea is that peer pressure will aid prevent the farmer from squandering his money ~ above something other than seed and fertilizer.

much more and more large banks, pension funds and also private equity firms are acquiring into micro financing and also are investing billions the dollars in it. People in the breakthrough field welcome the money, enhanced competition and brand-new financial services offered but likewise worry the the trend will certainly put profits ahead of help the poor and exploit the poor and also put lock in debt.

Erika Kinetz wrote in AP in 2011, In India, government lending programs for the bad in India have been shedding ground come microfinance groups. In 2007, state-backed self-help groups, which connect local borrowers through banks, sometimes at subsidized attention rates, included 8.5 million clients, when microfinance groups included 3.2 million. 2 years later, self-help groups included just 6.7 million clients, when microfinance groups included 8.5 million, follow to M-CRIL, one Indian micro-credit rating agency.

Problems because that Grameen Bank and also Microfinancing

market women in Africa Erika Kinetz composed in AP in 2011, “Long heralded as a means to background the downtrodden out of poverty, microfinance is under a cloud. The story of stays being changed by a $27 microloan and photo perfect scene of smiling females with vibrant handlooms, empowered by affordable credit, have actually been changed by headlines about borrowers driven to suicide. In ~ best, microfinance appears to it is in failing to attain its many noble goal: poor alleviation. In ~ worst, part lenders are contributing come a bike of indebtedness and abuse, as with the loan sharks lock sought to replace.”

officials in Andhra Pradesh are preparing to prosecute 51 situations of suicide allegedly linked to coercive microfinance groups. On the other hand the central bank is considering brand-new regulations i m sorry would, among other things, cap microfinance interest rates. "Irresponsible lending leading to multiple loan without early diligence, incompetent loans for consumption and consumer durables, absence of transparency in operations, usurious interest rates, coercive restore practices, have actually all brought about hyper-profits to microfinance institutions and also impoverishment of the poor," R. Subrahmanyam, principal Secretary the Rural development in Andhra Pradesh, told AP.

movie critics say the industry has grown too quickly for its very own good, v too lot rapaciousness and also too tiny regulation. The has cultivated a break down in loan discipline, through multiple loan to overextended borrowers, and enabled some unscrupulous players to thrive.The dispute has struggle the heartland that microfinance in southern Asia hard. Together India prepares fees in 51 cases of self-destruction allegedly attached to coercive microfinance institutions, microfinance"s starting father, Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, is fighting to organize onto his place as head that Grameen financial institution in a Bangladeshi court.

Crackdowns top top Microfinance

Shashi Tharoor composed in the Christian scientific research Monitor, In November 2010 “Andhra Pradesh, one of India’s many populous states, cracked down heavily on exclusive microfinance organizations (PMFIs), banning countless of their activities and telling borrowers they walk not must repay your loans. State authorities said they were prompted to take it decisive activity by a spate the suicides by borrowers who were unable to pay your debts. Roughly 80 clients were reported to have taken their very own lives last year---an alarming figure, though tiny loved one to the 26.7 million active borrowers native PMFIs in India.

Salt farmer in Africa Andhra Pradesh officials charged that PMFIs, which had actually lent around 80 exchange rate rupees (nearly $2 billion) in the state, levy “usurious” interest rates (24-30 percent per year) to sustain their promoters’ extravagant salaries and profits. In addition, too numerous borrowers had actually taken multiple loans from various sources and also were unable to repay them. Aggressive agents to be marketing the loans through no heed to borrowers’ capacity to repay. It to be alleged, too, that coercion was being supplied to precise repayment, leaving victims v no way out but to end their own lives.

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One school that received unwelcome attention was SKS Microfinance, when a poster kid for the PMFIs, which had done for this reason well and grown so large that its initial public giving last year to be oversubscribed 13-fold and raised $350 million. The earnings paid to its top executives---as a reward, essentially, because that lending efficiently to the poorest that the poor---were excoriated through leaders throughout India’s politics spectrum. SKS’ Chairman, Vikram Akula, supposedly made $13 million by marketing some that his shares critical year. Is that moral, critics asked, to profit so much from giving services that mitigate poverty?

Defenders that Microfinancing blame a couple of Bad Apples and also Vested politics Interests

Shashi Tharoor wrote in the Christian science Monitor, “But the counter-argument is that professionally-run personal microcredit is far better than no credit at all---the situation most of the poor confront. State financial institutions are claimed to loan generously come India’s rural poor, however their operations space mired in inefficiency and also corruption. Loans regularly require bribes, and the banks’ actions are bewildering to the unlettered. Timeless moneylenders room the just alternative, and they extort far much more than 30 percent a year---often in ~ the point of a knife, or worse.”

"To stifle whole industry is wrong," stated Vikram Akula, chief executive, management of SKS Microfinance, whose listing ~ above India"s stock industry last year sparked fierce debate around how lot profit is justifiable as soon as helping the poor. "It is the negative who will ultimately suffer the most if they need to return to town loan sharks for financial services."

part say the the impressive growth and also success the microfinancing triggered a backlash native vested politics interests. "The poor is a constituency politicians see together their own turf," stated Alok Prasad, chief executive of India"s Microfinance establishments Network, whose 46 members represent around 85 percent the the loan in the sector in India. "Anything which leader to higher empowerment that the poor makes castle insecure."

Erika Kinetz composed in AP in 2011, “In India, part say pandering because that voters, corruption and also competition v a state-backed lending program aided spark a crackdown the has basically frozen microlending in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh, India"s most important microfinance market. The main bank had to step in to try and avoid microfinance institutions from walking bankrupt.