Who Is Muhammad Yunus?
Muhammad Yunus is a professor of economics who was once awarded the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts in developing social and monetary improvements via microcredit and microloan operations. Most in particular, Yunus based totally the Grameen Monetary establishment, which is known for loaning billions of greenbacks to impoverished other folks in every single place the world.
Key Takeaways
- Muhammad Yunus is an economist, microfinancing pioneer, and founder of the grassroots Grameen Monetary establishment, known for loaning billions to impoverished other folks in every single place the world.
- While instructing economics in his native Bangladesh, Yunus was aware of the serious poverty throughout the country and the refusal of banks to provide credit score rating to poor other folks.
- He responded by the use of lending them the money himself, confident that the very poorest might simply elevate their own small trade process and their station with very small loans.
Understanding Muhammad Yunus
Muhammad Yunus is a Bangladeshi economist, easiest known as the founder of the grassroots Grameen Monetary establishment, a financial status quo (FI) that provides small loans to poor other folks without any collateral.
Yunus, who has since lengthy long past immediately to win a lot of prestigious awards and accolades for his artwork, believes that credit score rating is a elementary human correct. After years of studying and instructing economics academically, he took an full of life pastime in poverty. His purpose was once to help other folks break out monetary hardship by the use of supplying them with somewhat priced loans and a straightforward data to managing their price range.
Through the years, Yunus has moreover written plenty of books, along side: Building Social Trade: The New Kind of Capitalism that Serves Humanity’s Most Pressing Needs, Banker To The Poor: Micro-Lending and the Battle Against World Poverty, A World of three Zeros: The New Economics of 0 Poverty, 0 Unemployment and nil Web Carbon Emissions, and Creating a World Without Poverty: Social Trade and the Long term of Capitalism.
History of Muhammad Yunus
Formative Years
Born in Bangladesh on June 28, 1940, Yunus completed his BA and MA at Bangladesh’s Dhaka School. After graduating, he taught economics at Chittagong School, faster than receiving a Fulbright scholarship to test in the United States.
Throughout the early 1970s, Yunus completed his PhD in economics at Vanderbilt School. Following his analysis, Yunus returned to Bangladesh to grow to be the top of Chittagong School’s economics department.
Banker to the Poor
Around the time of Yunus’ return to Bangladesh, a famine had swept during the country. He was aware that the poor sought after get right of entry to to capital to start out out small corporations and that banks usually weren’t willing to help them, each refusing requests outright or charging extortionate interest rates.
In 1976, Yunus took problems into his non-public arms, loaning very small sums of money, reportedly $27, to 42 local girls who sought after to buy materials to offer their products. Typical banks wouldn’t offer loans or traces of credit score rating to other folks without collateral, however Yunus believed that the very poorest of a practice might simply elevate their own small trade process and their station with microcredit and microloans.
It was once this “discovery” of microcredit that would possibly lead him against the beginnings of forming the Grameen monetary establishment and his long run Nobel Prize. Yunus began borrowing money from other banks to make loans to the poor, to begin with as part of a pilot program that ran from 1976 to 1983.
In 1983, Yunus formally opened the Grameen (Village) monetary establishment, which served so to offer microcredit to entry-level and subsistence entrepreneurs. By the use of June 2020, Grameen Monetary establishment had given $30.48 billion greenbacks value of loans to one of the vital the most important world’s poorest other folks. Possibly additional importantly, Yunus’ scheme and his promotion of microcredit ended within the formation of a variety of an an identical tasks in nations around the globe.
As of 2020, Grameen Monetary establishment has more or less 9 million borrowers, 97% of which may also be girls, with a near-perfect repayment rate.
Awards
In 2006, Yunus was the principle Bangladeshi to acquire a Nobel Prize in any of the award disciplines. His country awarded a commemorative stamp to congratulate him. Yunus then pledged the $1.4 million in prize money to a company that wanted to offer affordable foods for the poor, while using the remainder to organize an eye fixed well being facility in his native group.
As Yunus’ achievements spread, additional accolades followed. In 2008, he was once listed as the second most necessary public intellectual by the use of Prospect magazine. Then in 2009 and 2010, he was once awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom and Congressional Gold Medal, respectively.
Yunus since went immediately to grow to be the chancellor of Glasgow Caledonian School of Scotland. He was once moreover invited to sit on the board of directors (B of D) at the United Global places Foundation, a charitable operation funded by the use of a $1 billion donation from Ted Turner.
Criticism of Muhammad Yunus
Yunus’ banking for the poor problem has come beneath attack from some quarters. Microfinance loans are mentioned to carry unusually most sensible interest rates, owing to a lack of collateral and the overheads associated with administering small loans.
Yunus himself has even admitted that some organizations can have abused the microcredit device for receive advantages. Another issue that has been flagged is the massive jump in scale of microcredit. As it expanded in every single place the world, it was a lot much less probably that borrowers might be monitored and protected from falling deep into debt like faster than.
