3. Introduction of social entrepeneur
Muhammad Yunus is a Bangladeshi social
entrepreneur, banker, economist and civil society
leader who was awarded the Nobel Peace
Prize in 2006. Yunus founded the Grameen
Bank and pioneered the concepts
of microcredit and microfinance. These loans are
given to entrepreneurs too poor to qualify for
traditional bank loans.
4. Introduction to social entrepreneur
Grameen Bank (GB) has reversed conventional banking practice by removing
the need for collateral and created a banking system based on mutual trust,
accountability, participation and creativity. GB provides credit to the poorest of
the poor in rural Bangladesh, without any collateral. At GB, credit is a cost
effective weapon to fight poverty and it serves as a catalyst in the over all
development of socio-economic conditions of the poor who have been kept
outside the banking orbit on the ground that they are poor and hence not
bankable. Professor Muhammad Yunus, the founder of "Grameen Bank" and its
Managing Director, reasoned that if financial resources can be made available to
the poor people on terms and conditions that are appropriate and reasonable,
"these millions of small people with their millions of small pursuits can add up to
create the biggest development wonder."
As of October, 2011, it has 8.349 million borrowers, 97 percent of whom are
women. With 2,565 branches, GB provides services in 81,379 villages, covering
more than 97 percent of the total villages in Bangladesh.
Grameen Bank's positive impact on its poor and formerly poor borrowers has
been documented in many independent studies carried out by external agencies
including the World Bank, the International Food Research Policy Institute
(IFPRI) and the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS).
5. History of social entrepreneur
In 1974, Professor Muhammad Yunus, a Bangladeshi economist from
Chittagong University, led his students on a field trip to a poor village.
They interviewed a woman who made bamboo stools, and they learnt
that she had to borrow the equivalent of 15p to buy raw bamboo for
each stool made. After repaying the middleman, sometimes at rates as
high as 10% a week, she was left with only a penny profit margin. Had
she been able to borrow at more advantageous rates, she would have
been able to amass an economic
cushion and raise herself above subsistence level. He approached
local banks, convincing them what those people most needed was
simply a tiny amount of money, as little as one dollar per person. The
reception was not warm. The bankers question him about the reliability
of the people.
Finally, Yunus took out the loans by himself, despite repeated warnings
that the recipients were so poor and the amounts so small that they
might just never return. Nevertheless, the scheme worked. The tiny
loans were repaid. Soon, Yunus expanded to several villages, then to
the whole district and finally, to five districts.
6. History of social entrepreneur
The origin of Grameen Bank can be traced back to 1976 when Professor Muhammad Yunus,
Head of the Rural Economics Program at the University of Chittagong, launched an action
research project to examine the possibility of designing a credit delivery system to provide
banking services targeted at the rural poor. The Grameen Bank Project (Grameen means
"rural" or "village" in Bangla language) came into operation with the following objectives:
-extend banking facilities to poor men and women;
-eliminate the exploitation of the poor by money lenders;
-create opportunities for self-employment for the vast multitude of unemployed people in rural
Bangladesh;
-bring the disadvantaged, mostly the women from the poorest households, within the fold of
an organizational format which they can understand and manage by themselves; and reverse
the age-old vicious circle of "low income, low saving & low investment", into virtuous circle of
"low income, injection of credit, investment, more income, more savings, more investment,
more income".
The action research demonstrated its strength in Jobra (a village adjacent to Chittagong
University) and some of the neighboring villages during 1976-1979. With the sponsorship of
the central bank of the country and support of the nationalized commercial banks, the project
was extended to Tangail district (a district north of Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh) in
1979. With the success in Tangail, the project was extended to several other districts in the
country. In October 1983, the Grameen Bank Project was transformed into an independent
bank by government legislation. Today Grameen Bank is owned by the rural poor whom it
serves. Borrowers of the Bank own 90% of its shares, while the remaining 10% is owned by
the government.
7. Impact of social entrepreneur
Grameen has had very high payback rates—over
98 percent. However, according to the Wall Street
Journal, in 2001 a fifth of the bank's loans were
more than a year overdue.[26] Grameen says that
more than half of its borrowers in Bangladesh
(close to 50 million) have risen out of acute
poverty thanks to their loan, as measured by such
standards as having all children of school age in
school, all household members eating three
meals a day, a sanitary toilet, a rainproof house,
clean drinking water, and the ability to repay a
300 taka-a-week (around 4 USD) loan.[
8. Impact of social entrepreneur
Grameen Bank is owned by the borrowers of the bank, most of whom are poor
women. Of the total equity of the bank, the borrowers own 94%, and the
remaining 6% is owned by the Government of Bangladesh.[24]
The bank grew significantly between 2003-2007. As of October 2007, the total
borrowers of the bank number 7.34 million, and 97% of those are women.[24] The
number of borrowers has more than doubled since 2003, when the bank had
3.12 million members.[35] Similar growth can be observed in the number of
villages covered. As of October 2007, the Bank has a staff of more than 24,703
employees; its 2,468 branches provide services to 80,257 villages,[24] up from the
43,681 villages covered in 2003.[35]
The bank has distributed Tk 684.13 billion (USD 11.35 billion) in loans, out of
which Tk 610.81 billion (USD 10.11 billion) has been repaid.[36] The bank claims a
loan recovery rate of 96.67%,[36] up from the 95% recovery rate claimed in
1998.[36] David Roodman has critiqued the accounting practices that Grameen
used to determine this rate.[26]
The global number of potential micro-borrowers is estimated to be 1 billion, with a
total loan demand of $250 billion. The present microfinance model is serving 100
million people with $25 billion of loans.[37] The Grameen Bank is 95% owned by
the local poor and 5% by the government.
