Muhammad Yunus
Muhammad Yunus
Muhammad Yunusis a Bangladeshi social entrepreneur, banker, economist, and civil society leader who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for founding the Grameen Bank and pioneering the concepts of microcredit and microfinance. These loans are given to entrepreneurs too poor to qualify for traditional bank loans. In 2006, Yunus and the Grameen Bank were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize "for their efforts through microcredit to create economic and social development from below". The Norwegian Nobel Committee said that "lasting...
ProfessionEntrepreneur
Date of Birth28 June 1940
CityChittagong, Bangladesh
I have always said that human beings are multidimensional beings. Their happiness comes from many sources, not, as our current economic framework assumes, just from making money.
We have designed a capitalist system wrong. We assume human beings are one-dimensional, all they do is make money, so we've created a money-centric world.
All human beings are very creative - full of potential, full of energy... So, money kind of allows them to express it... And if you're successful, you can take more money. You can expand your capacity, reach next level of capacity, and so on.
All human beings are born entrepreneurs. Some get a chance to unleash that capacity. Some never got the chance, never knew that he or she has that capacity.
Poverty is not created by poor people. It is produced by our failure to create institutions to support human capabilities.
We have a list of human rights - right to food, right to shelter, right to health, right to education, many such items which are considered and accepted as bill of rights. These are to be insured to people. So all nations, all societies try to do that.
We developed microfinance to fight loan sharks - I was telling people don't go to loan sharks - not trying to take advantage and make money for myself. I would be a junior loan shark if I did... It is not a panacea.
... When tiny, tiny things start happening a million times, it becomes a large thing. It lays down the foundation of a strong economic base. With women participating in building this economic base, it becomes the foundation for better social and economic future ...
I founded Grameen Bank to provide loans to those considered traditionally unbankable. Grameen Bank works with the poorest and often illiterate, providing uncollateralized micro-loans for tiny business enterprises by which they can lift themselves and their families out of poverty.
Policies are also to blame: the only thing that the governments and people can come up with to give to the poor people is charity. Poor people get hand outs from the state. But this is not a solution to poverty.
But we have created a society that does not allow opportunities for those people to take care of themselves because we have denied them those opportunities.
The Grameen clinics prove that a medical system 'for the poor' can be almost entirely self-supporting, and we hope we can make it fully self sufficient so we can expand it across Bangladesh.
The Grameen Bank Ordinance with amendments up to 2008 is a beautiful legal structure for the fulfillment of the ideals and objectives of the bank. Any change in this structure will be devastating for the bank.
I was teaching in one of the universities while the country was suffering from a severe famine. People were dying of hunger, and I felt very helpless. As an economist, I had no tool in my tool box to fix that kind of situation.