The "stirring" (Washington Post) story of how Nobel Prize winner Muhammad Yunus invented microcredit, founded the Grameen Bank, and transformed the fortunes of millions of poor people around the world
In 1983, Muhammad Yunus established Grameen, a bank devoted to providing the poorest of Bangladesh with minuscule loans. Twenty-three years later they won the Nobel Prize for Peace for their work in eradicating poverty. This is an inspiring story of one man's realization that access to even a small amount of credit can transform the lives of the poorest citizens of the world.
Yunus aimed to help the poor by supporting the spark of personal initiative and enterprise by which they could lift themselves out of poverty forever. It was an idea born on a day in 1976 when he loaned $27 from his own pocket to forty-two people living in a tiny village. These microentrepreneurs only needed enough credit to purchase the raw materials for their trade. Yunus's small loan helped them break the cycle of poverty for good. His solution to world poverty, founded on the belief that credit is a fundamental human right, is brilliantly simple: lend poor people money on terms that are suitable to them, teach them a few sound financial principles, and they will help themselves.
Yunus's theories work. Grameen Bank has provided loans totaling six billion dollars to seven million families in rural Bangladesh. Today, more than 250 institutions in nearly 100 countries operate micro-credit programs based on the Grameen methodology, placing Grameen at the forefront of a burgeoning world movement toward eradicating poverty through micro-lending. Muhammad Yunus, a native of Bangladesh, is the founder and managing director of Grameen Bank, a pioneer of microcredit, an economic movement that has helped lift millions of families around the world out of poverty. Yunus and Grameen Bank are winners of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize. He is currently serving as Chief Adviser to the interim government of Bangladesh. "By giving poor people the power to help themselves, Dr. Yunus has offered them something far more valuable than a plate of food - security in its most fundamental form."-President Jimmy Carter "I only wish every nation shared Dr. Yunus's and the Grameen Bank's appreciation of the vital role that women play in the economic, social, and political life of our societies." -Hillary Clinton "[Yunus's] ideas have already had a great impact on the Third World, and ... hearing his appeal for a 'poverty-free world' from the source itself can be as stirring as that all-American myth of bootstrap success."-Washington Post "Muhammad Yunus is a practical visionary who has improved the lives of millions of people in his native Bangladesh and elsewhere in the world. Banker to the Poor [is] well-reasoned yet passionate."-Los Angeles Times "A fascinating and compelling account by someone who decided to make a difference, and did."-CHOICE
