It began with a simple $27 loan. After witnessing the cycle of poverty that kept many poor women enslaved to high-interest loan sharks in Bangladesh, Dr. Muhammad Yunus lent money to 42 women so they could purchase bamboo to make and sell stools. In a short time, the women were able to repay the loans while continuing to support themselves and their families. With that initial eye-opening success, the seeds of the Grameen Bank, and the concept of microcredit, were planted.

After earning a Ph.D. in economics at Vanderbilt University, Dr. Yunus returned to Bangladesh to settle into a life as a professor. But a famine in 1974 ravaged the country, leading Dr. Yunus to alter his thinking and his life profoundly: "What good were all my complex theories when people were dying of starvation on the sidewalks and porches across from my lecture hall?.... Nothing in the economic theories I taught reflected the life around me." Armed with little more than a lofty dream to end the suffering around him, he started an experimental microcredit enterprise in 1977; by 1983 the Grameen Bank was officially formed.

The idea behind the Grameen Bank is ingeniously simple: extend credit to poor people and they will help themselves. This concept strikes at the root of poverty by specifically targeting the poorest of the poor, providing small loans (usually less than $300) to those unable to obtain credit from traditional banks. At Grameen, loans are administered to groups of five people, with only two receiving their money up front. As soon as these two make a few regular payments, loans are gradually extended to the rest of the group. In this way, the program builds a sense of community as well as individual self-reliance. Most of the Grameen Bank's loans are to women, and since its inception, there has been an astonishing loan repayment rate of over 98 percent.

Banker to the Poor is an inspiring memoir of the birth of microcredit, written in a conversational tone that makes it both moving and enjoyable to read. The Grameen Bank is now a $2.5 billion banking enterprise in Bangladesh, while the microcredit model has spread to over 50 countries worldwide, from the U.S. to Papua New Guinea, Norway to Nepal. Ever optimistic, Yunus travels the globe spreading the belief that poverty can be eliminated: "...the poor, once economically empowered, are the most determined fighters in the battle to solve the population problem; end illiteracy; and live healthier, better lives. When policy makers finally realize that the poor are their partners, rather than bystanders or enemies, we will progress much faster that we do today." Dr. Yunus's efforts prove that hope is a global currency. --Shawn Carkonen


From Library Journal
Bangladesh, a country the size of Florida with a population of over 120 million people, is the home of Grameen Bank, the inspiration of economist Yunus, Bangladesh-born and U.S.-trained. Instead of spending his life as a university economics professor, Yunus decided in the mid-1970s to develop a micro-lending program to help the poorest people of his country. Yunus based the program on his strong belief that the very poor do not need complicated training programs to improve their economic lot. They need money, in the form of loans. This program has empowered thousands of peopleAmany of them womenAand surprised experts in economic development who never believed that the very poor would find the initiative and ability to repay even the smallest ($25-$500) loans. Grameen ("of the village") Bank has developed into an internationally acclaimed and replicated method for assisting the impoverished in Malaysia, the Philippines, Nepal, and even the United States. Definitely recommended for larger public and academic libraries.AOlga B. Wise, Compaq Computers, Austin Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.


Book Description
This autobiography of the world-renowned, visionary economist who came up with a simple but revolutionary solution to end world poverty--micro-credit--has become the classic text for a growing movement. In 1983 Muhammad Yunus established Grameen, a bank devoted to providing the poorest of Bangladesh with miniscule loans. He 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. They were stool makers who only needed enough credit to purchase the raw materials for their trade. Yunus's loan helped them break the cycle of poverty and changed their lives forever. His solution to world poverty, founded on the belief that credit is a fundamental human right, is brilliantly simple: loan 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 3.8 billion dollars to 2.4 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.


About the Author
Muhammad Yunus was born in 1940 in Chittagong, a seaport in Bangladesh. The third of fourteen children, five of whom died in infancy, he was educated at Dhaka University and was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to study economics at Vanderbilt University. In 1972 he became the head of the economics department at Chittagong University. He is the founder and managing director of the Grameen Bank.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Muhammad Yunus has a dream: the total eradication of poverty. In 1983, against the advice of banking and government officials, Professor Yunus established Grameen, a bank devoted to providing the poorest of Bangladesh with minuscule loans. His objective was not just to help the poor survive, but to create the spark of personal initiative and enterprise that would help them lift themselves out of poverty forever. In Banker to the Poor, Yunus describes the many hurdles to putting his ideas into action - battles with bank bureaucrats, the deep-rooted fears of his first, tentative borrowers, devastating floods and famines - as well as the victories - the first Grameen branch opening in Jobra village and the first cell phone delivered to a proud village "telephone lady." He challenges our common perceptions of the economic relationship between rich and poor, their respective rights and obligations, their origins, and their future.

SYNOPSIS

The simple idea of micro-loans is revolutionizing developing economies. Instead of lending large sums of money to often corrupt bureaucracies, economist Muhammad Yunus founded Grameen Bank to offer tiny sums, as little as $5, to individual craftspeople, tenant farmers, and subsistence entrepreneurs so they could keep themselves afloat between buying and selling. That was in 1983. Sixteen years later, with $2.5 billion being dispersed annually to more than two million families in rural Bangladesh and repayment rates close to 100 percent, Yunus is being hailed as the father of a new economic model that is bringing people out of poverty. In Banker to the Poor, Yunus explains why his program works.

FROM THE CRITICS

KLIATT - Ann Hart

Newly appointed economics professor at Chittagong University in Bangladesh, Yunus began to feel frustrated by the abject poverty of his neighbors in contrast to the lofty economic theories he was imparting to his students. Subsequent research in the villages revealed that lack of credit was the poor people's problem. Local moneylenders also working as middlemen kept them from making a fair profit. In utter frustration one day, handing $27 to an assistant to go and make the loans, Yunus determined to do more. Working with his local bank revealed a firmly entrenched lending policy that contributed to the problem. His struggle began. Some years later Grameen Bank was granted a constitution and the legal protection of the Ministry of Finance. Yunus' book begins with a brief description of his childhood and education in Chittagong and relates how he became involved in the liberation of Bangladesh while a professor in the US. His incredible story is told in a simple, straightforward manner; no need to understand complicated economic theory to appreciate this book. It is a story of reaching out and improving the lives of poor people and proof that socially conscious-driven businesses can succeed. Grameen (meaning "rural" or "of the village") has grown to 1,190 branches working in 43,258 villages with 11,806 employees since its founding in 1983. It currently provides the same financial services that "real" banks provide. It is 93% owned by its membership with 95% of its borrowers women. Loan repayment percentage is 98.08% and it has realized a profit in all but three of its years in business. Yunus' plan for micro lending has evolved and spread into other parts of the world, including ruralArkansas under Clinton's governorship, gaining popularity among traditional banking institutions. Subject areas for this book are economics, social affairs, poverty, and women's studies. KLIATT Codes: SA-Recommended for senior high school students, advanced students, and adults. 1999, PublicAffairs, 273p. illus. index., Ages 15 to adult.

Library Journal