Another Bengali wins Nobel Prize. After Rabindranath Tagore and Mother Teresa (honorary Bengali) it is Muhammad Yunus of Grameen Bank.
His revolutionary Grameen (Village) banking system is estimated to have extended credit to more than seven million of the world’s poor, most of them in Bangladesh, one of the poorest nations in the world.
The vast majority of the beneficiaries are women.
Mr Yunus came up with the idea in 1976 while professor of economics at Chittagong University in southern Bangladesh
The BBC’s Roland Buerk in Dhaka says that Mr Yunus lives a simple life. The Grameen Bank is owned by its customers and the Bangladeshi government.
Even beggars can get Grameen loans
Our correspondent says that Mr Yunus has already created a legacy of real social change in Bangladesh.
His work has been widely recognised. In 1999 he was awarded the Indira Gandhi prize for peace, disarmament and development in India.
Nice to see him get the prize. Probably done more to change poverty than most initiatives, the holy grail of letting people work themselves out. Well deserved.
What's so revolutionary about it? Robin Hood was lend ing money to the poorest of the poor long before him. Bill Gates has probably given more to charities than him. Mother Teresa was giving out micro credits long before him - but then again she did win the Noble Peace Prize also. Still, it's nice of him to do it, but it doesnt take a brain for it, just someone who does some good charity. A "micro credit" is just lending small amounts of money without asking for collateral (soft loans are one example). Many institutions do operate in this way to different degrees. It's not a new concept, just a generous one.
PS I actually gave out a "microcredit" to a poor man with less collateral long before all this.
His revolutionary Grameen (Village) banking system is estimated to have extended credit to more than seven million of the world's poor, most of them in Bangladesh, one of the poorest nations in the world.
The vast majority of the beneficiaries are women.
Mr Yunus came up with the idea in 1976 while professor of economics at Chittagong University in southern Bangladesh
The BBC's Roland Buerk in Dhaka says that Mr Yunus lives a simple life. The Grameen Bank is owned by its customers and the Bangladeshi government.
Even beggars can get Grameen loans
Our correspondent says that Mr Yunus has already created a legacy of real social change in Bangladesh.
His work has been widely recognised. In 1999 he was awarded the Indira Gandhi prize for peace, disarmament and development in India.
he is great person when clinton visited Bangladesh he visited Mr Yunus
not only Grameen bank there are Grameen Phone the cellur network is expanded wide to every corner of BD
PS I actually gave out a "microcredit" to a poor man with less collateral long before all this.
You are ignoring the fact that Bill Gates is "giving" charity from his own money. I don't know if Mother Teresa had institutionalized micro-credit on such large scale to help poors.
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PS I actually gave out a "microcredit" to a poor man with less collateral long before all this
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Islam also encourages all that so neither you nor Yunus "invented" anything, rather Dr Yunus used current financial systems and shaped it to that use on largers scale.
well deserved. he has made a positive change in thousands of people's lives directly and countless indirectly.
The committee should look at the edhis in future as well.
I had a chance to hear him speak here in the US when he visited our school a few years back. He is incredibly dedicated, down-to-earth, and inspirational.
Links to a video and transcript of his speech where he shares his story.
Islam also encourages all that so neither you nor Yunus "invented" anything, rather Dr Yunus used current financial systems and shaped it to that use on largers scale.
Yep, he made a bank see sense to reduce collateral and hit the low paid majority in Bangladesh. I would class him as a smart business minded Bengali, but no Nobel Prize laureate like mentioned in the beginning.
My examples werent chosen well. A better example would have been the welfare system that operates here though this pays even less collateral but is institutionalized, or perhaps the Stelios companies that also operate here. But the point was someone establishing a micro credit based institution in a poor country is not a revolutionary idea, perhaps just a generous one.