Nobel Laureate Professor Dr. Muhammad Yunus has changed life of millions of the poor, especially women, for the better within Bangladesh and across the globe with his micro-lending and social business concepts via his Bangladesh-based Grameen Bank.
Dr. Muhammad Yunus is considered as the father of microcredit (tiny loans to help poor people start their own businesses) in its current practical incarnation. He is considered is the 9th most admired personality globally, according to the world economic forum’s survey.
Banker to the poor
Considered as a banker to the poorest of the poor, he is a Bangladeshi social entrepreneur, banker, economist and civil society leader, and the founder of Grameen Bank, and dozens of other companies in Bangladesh.
Nobel Prize
In 2006, Dr. Muhammad Yunus and his brainchild the Grameen Bank were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in peace, “for their efforts to create economic and social development from below” recognizing the important link between poverty and peace.
Early Life
Dr. Muhammad Yunus was born on June 28, 1940, in a village of Chittagong, East Bengal, which is now Bangladesh. He spent his early childhood years in the village. In 1944, his family moved to the city of Chittagong.
Education & Career
As he has always been a meritorious student, he passed the matriculation examination from Chittagong Collegiate School ranking 16th of 39,000 students in East Pakistan. He was an active Boy Scout during his school years.
“Professor Yunus studied at Dhaka University in Bangladesh, then received a Fulbright scholarship to study economics at Vanderbilt University. He received his Ph.D. in economics from Vanderbilt in 1969 and the following year became an assistant professor of economics at Middle Tennessee State University. Returning to Bangladesh, Yunus headed the economics department at Chittagong University,” according to the Noble Prize website.
Fighting Poverty
The sorrows of the poorer society he had witnessed during the 1974 famine inspired him to work on reducing poverty and unemployment. In 1976, when Yunus visited very poor households in the village of Jobra near Chittagong University, he discovered that very small loans could make an enormous difference in a poor person’s life. He found Jobra women who made bamboo furniture had to take out loans at usurious rates. Shocked by this reality, he gave $27 dollars to 42 women, so that they can have their own business and set themselves free from the loan shark.
Grameen Bank
In 1983, Muhammad Yunus founded Grameen Bank (the Bank of Village) in famine-stricken and newly born Bangladesh, fueled by the belief that credit is a fundamental human right, and in an effort to realize his vision of self-support for the very poorest people by means of loans on easy terms.
As a microfinance organization and community development bank making small loans to the impoverished without requiring collateral, the Grameen Bank works on the assumption that even the poorest of the poor can manage their own financial affairs. It provides small long-term loans on easy terms, so almost anyone can get bank credit. As of early 2017, the bank had nine million borrowers, 97% of them women. It has become a source of inspiration for similar microcredit institutions in over one hundred countries.
Social business
According to Centre Yunus’s website, “A Social business as defined by Prof. Yunus is an innovative approach to tackle the big social and environmental challenges of our times. It is a powerful tool to create a world of three zeros: zero poverty, zero unemployment and zero net carbon emissions. Social business is a sustainable business whose purpose is to serve a societal cause.”
“There are two kinds of businesses in the world. One is a business which makes money, and the other solves the problems of the world,” said the Nobel Laureate in a report published in March 2017 on The Guardian’s website
Awards and achievements
Professor Muhammad Yunus is the recipient of 61 honorary degrees from universities across 24 countries. He has received 136 awards from 33 countries including state honors from 10 countries. He is one of seven individuals to have received the Nobel Peace Prize.
Books of Dr. Yunus
Dr. Yunus has written numerous books, including ‘Banker to the Poor: Micro-Lending and the Battle Against World Poverty’, ‘A World of Three Zeros’, ‘Creating a World Without Poverty: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism’, and ‘Building Social Business: The New Kind of Capitalism That Serves Humanity’s Most Pressing Needs’.
