Muhammad Yunus is a Bangladeshi economist who is best known for his ideas on microfinance, which involves extending small loans to people who are marginalized in society. He and the Grameen Bank, which he founded, were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006.
Education of Muhammad Yunus
Yunus studied economics in Bangladesh and the USA and later became a professor of economics at the University of Chittagong in Bangladesh. His ideas on microfinance involve extending loans of small amounts to people who are poor, have limited means to earn a living, and are generally overlooked by the finance sector. Microfinance also believes that the lack of collateral should not stand in the way of someone receiving a loan.
The Founder of Grameen Bank
Yunus founded the Grameen Bank on the principles of “trust and solidarity” to provide micro-credit without collateral to the “poorest of the poor” in rural Bangladesh. According to its website, the Bank provides services in over 80,000 villages and has about 2,500 branches. It says, “From its origins as an action-research project in 1976, Grameen Bank has grown to provide collateral-free loans to 7.5 million clients in more than 82,072 villages in Bangladesh and 97% of whom are women.”
Nobel Prize Winners Protesting
Recently, more than 100 Nobel prize winners and other global figures have urged Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to suspend her government’s ongoing legal proceedings against Yunus. Signatories to the August 28 letter include former US President Barack Obama and former US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton. Earlier in March, 40 people had also written a letter regarding the safety of Yunus, including Infosys founder Narayan Murthy. These letters point to Yunus’s contributions to the field of poverty eradication in Bangladesh and the recent legal proceedings initiated against him by the State.
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