Grameen Bank
The Grameen Bank is a microfinance organization and community development bank started in Bangladesh that makes small loans (known as microcredit) to the impoverished without requiring collateral. The system is based on the idea that the poor have skills that are under-utilized. The bank also accepts deposits, provides other services, conducts social improvement programmes, struggling members programme, rural telephone programme, and runs several development-oriented businesses including fabric, telephone and energy companies. The organization and its founder, Muhammad Yunus, were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006.The Grameen Bank is the outgrowth of Muhammad Yunus' ideas. In 1976, the village of Jobra and other villages surrounding the University of Chittagong became the first areas eligible for service from Grameen Bank. The Bank today continues to expand across the nation and still provides small loans to the rural poor. As of mid-2006, Grameen Bank branches number over 2,100. Its success has inspired similar projects around the world.The system is the basis for the microcredit and the self-help group system now at work in over 43 countries. This creates economic incentives for the group to act responsibly (such as other members then being able to receive additional loans), increasing Grameen's economic viability. Besides extending microcredit loans to the poor people, Grameen Bank has taken several innovative programmes for poverty eradication. Despite all these glorious achievements, Grameen Bank is not above criticism. Sudhirendar Sharma, a development analyst, Abdul Barkat of the University of Dhaka, The Mises Institute's Jeffrey Tucker claim that it has "landed poor communities in a perpetual debt-trap, and that its ultimate benefit goes to the corporations that sell capital goods and infrastructure to the borrowers”.
The Grameen Bank is a microfinance organization and community development bank started in Bangladesh that makes small loans (known as microcredit) to the impoverished without requiring collateral. The system is based on the idea that the poor have skills that are under-utilized. The bank also accepts deposits, provides other services, conducts social improvement programmes, struggling members programme, rural telephone programme, and runs several development-oriented businesses including fabric, telephone and energy companies. The organization and its founder, Muhammad Yunus, were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006.The Grameen Bank is the outgrowth of Muhammad Yunus' ideas. In 1976, the village of Jobra and other villages surrounding the University of Chittagong became the first areas eligible for service from Grameen Bank. The Bank today continues to expand across the nation and still provides small loans to the rural poor. As of mid-2006, Grameen Bank branches number over 2,100. Its success has inspired similar projects around the world.The system is the basis for the microcredit and the self-help group system now at work in over 43 countries. This creates economic incentives for the group to act responsibly (such as other members then being able to receive additional loans), increasing Grameen's economic viability. Besides extending microcredit loans to the poor people, Grameen Bank has taken several innovative programmes for poverty eradication. Despite all these glorious achievements, Grameen Bank is not above criticism. Sudhirendar Sharma, a development analyst, Abdul Barkat of the University of Dhaka, The Mises Institute's Jeffrey Tucker claim that it has "landed poor communities in a perpetual debt-trap, and that its ultimate benefit goes to the corporations that sell capital goods and infrastructure to the borrowers”.