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To Muhammad Yunus, poor people are like bonsai. Even choosing the best seed of the tallest tree, if you plant it in a small flower pot it cannot grow big. Society is the flower pot, the system we have built that keeps poor people from growing. The seed of the person is as good as the tallest tree, but we must change the system to let each person grow to her potential.
Yunus, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006, insists that credit is a human right, in fact the primary human right that can help people achieve fulfillment of all others. Credit can enable self-employment which generates income, allowing you to feed, house, and clothe your family. This principal underlies Grameen Foundation and Grameen Bank's success in moving millions of families out of poverty, beginning in Bangladesh and spreading worldwide. In Bangladesh over 80% of families have been reached through microfinance, and since Grameen's inception in the 1970's, life expectancy has dramatically increased and over 200,000 people annually now escape poverty.
In this lecture Yunus addresses the role of governments in facilitating the creation of microcredit banks, and the role of international organizations like the United Nations and the World Bank. They can help promote microcredit through policy, legislation, data collection and sharing, and rewarding successful microcredit practices and achievements.
Microfinance is a proven, sustainable poverty-fighting strategy that works in all kind of cultural environments. For it to reach its potential, Yunus explains that we must change the mindsets of donors, banks, and government policymakers worldwide.
Muhammad Yunus, born in 1940 in Bangladesh, has helped to raise millions of families out of poverty by founding the Grameen movement. Grameen creates the opportunities for microcredit, the extension of small loans to entrepreneurs often in rural communities, too poor to qualify for traditional bank loans. This lifechanging work won Yunus and Grameen the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 "for their efforts to create economic and social development from below."
Yunus received his PhD in Economics in 1969, was an assistant professor of Economics at Middle Tennessee State University, and later joined the Economics Department at Chittagong University at home in Bangladesh.
Yunus has received numerous international awards for his innovative work to eradicate poverty and famine and promoting peace through economic and social justice.
Resources:
This program is from our Ashoka series.
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