Grameen Bank: Economics that works at the grass roots level

Congratulations to Professor Muhammad Yunus of Bangladesh for winning the Nobel Peace prize. Yunus, an economics professor is the founder of Grameen Bank (GB). He set up the Bank in 1976 as a pilot project to provide access for poor Bangladeshis. It specializes in giving out collateral-free small loans to landless, rural people to help them become self-employed. Its credit policy is based mainly on mutual trust, accountability, participation and creativity.

As posted in the Bank's website: www.grameen-info.org/bank, GB has to date, 6.61 million borrowers, 97 percent of whom are women. With 2,226 branches, GB provides services in 71,371 villages, covering more than 100 percent of the total villages in Bangladesh. Not only that, GB's operational concept has since been copied in more than 40 countries - including the Philippines. Iloilo-based "Taytay sa Kauswagan" is patterned after GB.

Prof. Yunus' microcredit program presented the world with an effective alternative to alleviate poverty - a novel economic theory that "works at the grass roots level", and is now a regular feature of economic textbooks used in many universities. Yunus was likewise conferred a similar award in 1984, by the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation, commonly referred to as Asia's Nobel.