Professor Dr Muhammad Yunus, Nobel laureate and founder and managing director of Grameen Bank, delivered the inaugral Nobel Laureate Lecture organised by the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) in Singapore yesterday.
Prof Yunus related an example of the social experiment that he launched in 1976 to help the poor in Bangladesh through his Grameen Bank. He lent the equivalent of US$26 to 42 workers. They bought the materials for a day's work weaving chairs or making pots, and soon paid back the loan.
The Grameen Bank's credit scheme has helped the poorest of the poor, and this method has made significant contribution to tackle issues of poverty and development worldwide, particularly in Bangladesh.
Since then, the Grameen Bank has disbursed 290 billion takas ($7.2 billion) and boasts a loan recovery rate of 99 per cent.
The microcredit system took off in the United States after 1986, when Prof Yunus was invited by then-Governor of Arkansas, Mr Bill Clinton, to help alleviate the state's poverty situation.
Singapore faced with an increasing wealth gap between the rich and poor is looking into the feasibility of the Grameen model of microcredit here.
Can the microcredit finance help alleviate poverty in Maldives? Prof Yunus could be invited to Maldives to give his opinion.
What is quite amazing is to see how one person can make a huge difference because he cares. This is what social entrepreneurship is all about.
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1 comment:
good post... more people should think of ways to help the poor by themselves instead of looking at others... and this is proof that even one person can truly make a difference.
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