Women and Microcredit in Rural Bangladesh: An Anthropological Study of Grameen Bank Lending
By Aminur Rahman
Publisher: Westview Press
Number Of Pages: 200
Publication Date: 2001-02-21
ISBN-10 / ASIN: 0813339308
ISBN-13 / EAN: 9780813339306
Product Description:
The Grameen Bank of Bangladesh has been extending small loans to poor borrowers (primarily women) to promote self-employment and income generation since 1976. The apparent success of the Grameen Bank (that is, recruitment of clients, investment of loans, recovery rates on invested loans and profit margins) has made microcredit a new model for poverty alleviation and sustainable development. Anthropological research results on Grameen Bank lending to women presented in this book, however, illuminates the link between the success of the bank and debt-cycling of borrowers. The priority of earning profits to insure institutional economic viability caused Bank employees at the grassroots level to emphasize increasing the number of loans disbursed and loan recovery. By using the joint liability model of lending, the Bank workers and borrowing peers impose intense pressure on clients for timely repayment. Many borrowers maintain their regular payment schedules, but do so through a process of loan recycling (that is, pay off previous loans with new ones) that considerably increases borrower debt liability. The debt burdens on individual households in turn increase tension and anxiety among household members and produce unintended consequences for many clients.This book examines women borrowers’ involvement with the microcredit program of the Grameen Bank, and the grassroots lending structure of the bank; it illustrates the implications of Grameen lending for the borrowers, their household members and bank workers. The focus of the study is on the processes of village-level microcredit operation; it addresses the realities of the day-to-day lives of women borrowers and bank workers and explains informant strategies for involving themselves in this microcredit scheme. The study is on the power dynamics of everyday lives of informants as they affect women borrowers’ relationships within the household and the loan centers, and bank worker relationships within the loan center and the bank.
Business / Commerce
Finance / Investing
Small Loans, Big Dreams: How Nobel Prize Winner Muhammad Yunus and Microfinance are Changing the World
By Alex Counts
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Publisher: Wiley
Number Of Pages: 410
Publication Date: 2008-04-04
ISBN-10 / ASIN: 0470196327
ISBN-13 / EAN: 9780470196328
Binding: Hardcover
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Product Description:
Micro-financing is considered one of the most effective strategies in the fight against global poverty. It can be implemented on the massive scale necessary to respond to the urgent needs of the world's poorest. And now, in Small Loans, Big Changes, author Alex Counts looks at the lives of micro-lending borrowers from the Grameen Foundation in Bangladesh and Chicago. All of the borrowers profiled here are women of little-to-no means, each struggling to gain financial independence. Readers will discover how, in Bangladesh, these women face off against very poor living conditions and the prejudice of men, while in Chicago, they must overcome crime and other hurdles that come with life in the inner city. Written in a straightforward and accessible style, Small Loans, Big Changes reveals how Muhammad Yunus and his concept of micro-financing has helped those living in poverty achieve real financial independence.
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Summary: Small Loans, Big Dreams
Rating: 5
Dear Friends,
I have just finished an amazing and inspiring book that I'd like to make you aware of - Small Loans, Big Dreams - by my good friend, colleague, and advisor Alex Counts, President and CEO of the Grameen Foundation. For those of you who may have read his other book - Give Us Credit - you will love catching up with some of those women from Bangladesh and from Chicago he brought alive in 1996. Women like Shandha, the "mother hen" of her credit center whose son became one of the first recipients of Grameen's high education loan and has now completed his master's degree. Or Omiyale and Queenesta, two African-American woman living in Chicago who were part of a solidarity group called Les Papillons (The Butterflies). You'll love getting caught up with how their lives have been evolving as they continue to face the obstacles and bumps in the road that the poor all over the world face.
Even if you didn't read Give Us Credit, you'll love reading about these women and their struggles now. Alex is an amazing storyteller and you quickly get caught up in their lives as they participate in microfinance programs half way around the world from each other. You see so quickly just how microfinance transforms lives, although not always in the nice, neat way we would like to see it function. Alex is nothing if not honest as he lets his subjects' stories unfold. It is fascinating to see the intertwining of the modifications the Grameen Bank and other microfinance institutions have made over time and the lives of real people as those changes affect their lives and their choices. As Alex says, ". . . their uneven but steady progress has reaffirmed my belief in microfinance, and also my desire to ensure that the model continues to improve and serve the poor better through more responsive products."
At the same time, this book is not just about these women. Rather, it is fundamentally a book about how Professor Muhammad Yunus and the microfinance movement are changing the world. Throughout the book, Alex provides his own insights into microfinance as it has evolved from the origins of the Grameen Bank to that of a broader social and business movement. After reading the book, you will understand much better why microfinance is today at a crossroads, what the divisions are about, and why Fonkoze in Haiti keeps its focus on the core business of microfinance - reducing poverty - by refining and extending the tools (whether financial, educational or health care related) that it makes available to the poor, wherever they are on their journey out of poverty. This is a big book about small loans that will help you understand the gigantic movement they have spawned. When you get the time, do pick it up and take a peek inside . . . it won't be easy to put it back down.
Enjoy!
Anne Hastings
Fonkoze Haiti
Creating a World Without Poverty: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism
By Muhammad Yunus
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Number Of Pages: 296
Publication Date: 2008-01-07
ISBN-10 / ASIN: 1586484931
ISBN-13 / EAN: 9781586484934
The winner of the Nobel Peace Prize outlines his vision for a new business model that combines the power of free markets with the quest for a more humane world—and tells the inspiring stories of companies that are doing this work today.
In the last two decades, free markets have swept the globe, bringing with them enormous potential for positive change. But traditional capitalism cannot solve problems like inequality and poverty, because it is hampered by a narrow view of human nature in which people are one-dimensional beings concerned only with profit.
In fact, human beings have many other drives and passions, including the spiritual, the social, and the altruistic. Welcome to the world of social business, where the creative vision of the entrepreneur is applied to today's most serious problems: feeding the poor, housing the homeless, healing the sick, and protecting the planet.
Creating a World Without Poverty tells the stories of some of the earliest examples of social businesses, including Yunus's own Grameen Bank. It reveals the next phase in a hopeful economic and social revolution that is already under way—and in the worldwide effort to eliminate poverty by unleashing the productive energy of every human being.
From Inside Flap
What if you could harness the power of the free market to solve the problems of poverty, hunger, and inequality? To some, it sounds impossible. But Nobel Peace Prizewinner Muhammad Yunus is doing exactly that. As founder of Grameen Bank, Yunus pioneered microcredit, the innovative banking program that provides poor people—mainly women—with small loans they use to launch businesses and lift their families out of poverty. In the past thirty years, microcredit has spread to every continent and benefited over 100 million families.
But Yunus remained unsatisfied. Much more could be done, he believed, if the dynamics of capitalism could be applied to humanity's greatest challenges.
Now, in Creating a World Without Poverty, Yunus goes beyond microcredit to pioneer the idea of social business—a completely new way to use the creative vibrancy of business to tackle social problems from poverty and pollution to inadequate health care and lack of education.
This book describes how Yunus—in partnership with some of the world's most visionary business leaders—has launched the world's first purposely designed social businesses. From collaborating with Danone to produce affordable, nutritious yogurt for malnourished children in Bangladesh to building eyecare hospitals that will save thousands of poor people from blindness, Creating a World Without Poverty offers a glimpse of the amazing future Yunus forecasts for a planet transformed by thousands of social businesses. Yunus's "Next Big Idea" offers a pioneering model for nothing less than a new, more humane form of capitalism.
From Publishers Weekly
Economics professor Yunus claims he originally became involved in the poverty issue not as a policy-maker, scholar, or researcher, but because poverty was all around me. With these words he stopped teaching elegant theories and began lending small amounts of money, $40 or less, without collateral, to the poorest women in the world. Thirty-three years later, the Grameen Bank has helped seven million people live better lives building businesses to serve the poor. The bank is solidly profitable, with a 98.6% repayment rate. It inspired the micro-credit movement, which has helped 100 million of the poorest people in the world escape poverty and earned Yunus (Banker to the Poor) a Nobel Peace prize. This volume efficiently recounts the story of microcredit, then discusses Social Business, organizations designed to help people while turning profits. French food giant Danone's partnership to market yogurt in Bangladesh is described in detail, along with 25 other businesses that operate under the Grameen banner. Infused with entrepreneurial spirit and the excitement of a worthy challenge, this book is the opposite of pessimistic recitals of intractable poverty's horrors.
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Contents
Prologue: Starting With A Handshake
Photos
Part I: The Promise Of Social Business
1 A New Kind of Business
Is Government the Answer?
The Contribution of Nonprofit Organizations
Multilateral Institutions—The Development Elite
Corporate Social Responsibility
Capitalism Is a Half-Developed Structure
Note
2 Social Business: What It Is and What It Is Not
Social Business Profits Stay within the Business
Broadening the Landscape of Business
Two Kinds of Social Businesses
The Difference between Social Business and Social Entrepreneurship
What about a "Hybrid"?
Past Attempts to Combine Social Goals with Traditional Business
Where Will Social Businesses Come From?
Human Beings Are Multi-Dimensional
Part II: The Grameen Experiment
3 The Microcredit Revolution
The Birth of a "Banker to the Poor"
A Shift in Thinking
More Economic Blind Spots
The Evolution of Grameen Bank
The Evolving Grameen System
From Grameen I to Grameen II: A More Flexible, Responsive System
Microcredit around the World
The Return of the Moneylenders
Problems with Funding Microcredit
Mainstream Banks and Microcredit
Credit: The Vital Foundation
Note
4 From Microcredit to Social Business
The Grameen Family of Companies
Spreading the Word about Microcredit: Grameen Trust
Revitalizing an Age-Old Craft: Grameen Uddog and Grameen Shamogree
Promoting Entrepreneurship: Grameen Fund and Grameen Byabosa Bikash
Improving Rural Livelihoods: Grameen Fisheries and Livestock
Opening Opportunities for Young Minds: Grameen Shikkha
Linking Every Village to the World: Grameen Telecom and Grameen Phone
Renewable Energy for Rural Bangladesh: Grameen Shakti
Bringing Health Care to the Poor: Grameen Kalyan and Grameen Health Care Services
Social Business: A New Economic Frontier
5 The Battle against Poverty: Bangladesh and Beyond
Poverty Programs That Work
Credit Comes First
Charity Is Not Always the Answer
Bangladesh and the Developed World
Toward Regional Peace and Prosperity
Bangladesh and Its Giant Neighbors
Bangladesh's Strategic Location
The Mega-Port Can Be a Social Business
6 God Is in the Details
The First Planning Meeting
Fortified Yogurt for Children
In Search of Answers
A New Venture Takes Shape
New Ways of Thinking: In Production and Distribution
Finding the Winning Formula
The Official Launch
7 One Cup of Yogurt at a Time
A Sports Super-Hero Kick-Starts the Business
A Win for the Company, a Win for the Poor
Edible Cups?
Bringing Meaning to Business Life
Part III: A World Without Poverty
8 Broadening the Marketplace
Who Will Invest in Social Business?
Financing Grameen Danone
New Yardsticks for Evaluating Business
Tax and Regulatory Issues
Social Business and a World Transformed
More Than a Fantasy
9 Information Technology, Globalization, and a Transformed World
The Power of IT to Help the Poor
Tailoring Technology to the Needs of the Poor
Social Business and the IT Revolution
The IT Revolution and Democracy
10 Hazards of Prosperity
Economic Inequality and the Struggle over Global Resources
Spreading the Wealth and the Growth Dilemma
The Logic of Uncontrolled Growth
How Much Consumption?
Making Space for a New Set of Voices
Solving the Growth Dilemma
Notes
11 Putting Poverty in Museums
A Better World Starts with Imagination
Practical Steps toward the Dream-World of the Future
New Frontiers for Foundations
An End to Poverty
Epilogue: "Poverty Is a Threat to Peace"—The Nobel Prize Lecture
For Further Information
Index
About the Author
About the Publisher
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Summary: The Right Way
Rating: 5
Empirical evidence that just throwing money at a social problem isn't the best solution. Micro-financing is an amazing concept. Great book.
Summary: Future of Social Capitalism
Rating: 5
I agree with everything that the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, Dr. Muhammad Yunus wrote about in creating a global economy based on social capitalism for developing economies. Although I am not an expert in economics; I just want to add to this based on my common sense approach on the present financial crisis, which has developed after his book Creating a World Without Poverty was written.
Both governments and people have failed to grasp the extent of the financial crisis. The examples of the financial crisis are just symptoms of a decayed economic system; some of the most problematic sectors have not even come to the surface yet. The U.S. Government would have been best served by letting the old system collapse, and should not have bailed out the big investment banks. Rather, the government should have helped the people who were most desperate. The bailout was a reward for failure, in favor of the privileged and advantaged. It was the taxpayers and disadvantaged ones paying the price and assuming the risk. This is the perfect time for starting a new economic model, based on social capitalism, which values humanity. The bailouts and stimulus packages are a short-term solution that does not really attempt to solve the overreaching problem. It is going to be slow and painful economic recovery.
Nothing is wrong with tax increases for the rich and cutting unnecessary government and public spending. In a time of crisis, the very rich should be the part of the solution. Some things to keep in mind as this global integration takes place, is that there should be separate international banks for the global economy; commercial banks for the wealthy and corporations, and small community banks for the middle to working class.
When the British ruled India, their administrative structure was hierarchical (capitalistic), they used knowledge management (socialistic) methods which included tangible and intangible values approach. Information went from the bottom of the chain to the top, information was gathered (data gathering with interviews, investigations and direct supervision) and filtered, whereupon the data would be used to address a given problem and come up with a solution for strong productivity and efficiency.
Summary: AWESOME
Rating: 5
I am so enjoying reading this book it really is where we need to focus as a society. Very educational and informative, so glad that I bought it. Remarkable I give this book a 5 star plus. I am grateful to Muhammad Yunus, I hope he inspires many more.
Summary: A book that reminds you that there is a solution to poverty
Rating: 5
This book gives you a blueprint of how the poverty problem can be solved.
One thing that Mr. YUNUS pointed out was getting credit to poor people and how the larger economic commumity discriminates against the poor by not giving them credit or giving them a hard time to get it. He also points out similarities with western poverty and how people are also shut out from getting credit. This is a very good book for anyone that wants to know the answer to the poverty question.
英文版。
这本书是《纽约客》杂志专职作家马尔科姆·格拉德威尔的一部才华横溢之作。他以社会上突如其来的流行风潮研究为切入点，从一个全新的角度探索了控制科学和营销模式。他认为，思想、行为、信息以及产品常常会像传染病爆发一样，迅速传播蔓延。正如一个病人就能引起一场全城流感；如果个别工作人员对顾客大打出手，或几位涂鸦爱好者管不住自己，也能在地铁里掀起一场犯罪浪潮；一位满意而归的顾客还能让新开张的餐馆座无虚席。这些现象均属“社会流行潮”，它爆发的那一刻，即达到临界水平的那一刻，就是一个引爆点。
格拉德威尔走访了宗教团体、成功的高科技公司以及全球最优秀的推销员，他在书中分析了几种有利于开创流行风潮的性格特征，剖析了种种极具感染力的事件，如各种风尚、吸烟现象、儿童电视、商业邮寄广告等，并阐明其背后的导火索。通过大量深具说明力的研究，揭示出发起流行潮并保持其势头的原则和方法
"The best way to understand the dramatic transformation of unknown books into bestsellers, or the rise of teenage smoking, or the phenomena of word of mouth or any number of the other mysterious changes that mark everyday life," writes Malcolm Gladwell, "is to think of them as epidemics. Ideas and products and messages and behaviors spread just like viruses do." Although anyone familiar with the theory of memetics will recognize this concept, Gladwell's The Tipping Point has quite a few interesting twists on the subject.
For example, Paul Revere was able to galvanize the forces of resistance so effectively in part because he was what Gladwell calls a "Connector": he knew just about everybody, particularly the revolutionary leaders in each of the towns that he rode through. But Revere "wasn't just the man with the biggest Rolodex in colonial Boston," he was also a "Maven" who gathered extensive information about the British. He knew what was going on and he knew exactly whom to tell. The phenomenon continues to this day--think of how often you've received information in an e-mail message that had been forwarded at least half a dozen times before reaching you.
Gladwell develops these and other concepts (such as the "stickiness" of ideas or the effect of population size on information dispersal) through simple, clear explanations and entertainingly illustrative anecdotes, such as comparing the pedagogical methods of Sesame Street and Blue's Clues, or explaining why it would be even easier to play Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon with the actor Rod Steiger. Although some readers may find the transitional passages between chapters hold their hands a little too tightly, and Gladwell's closing invocation of the possibilities of social engineering sketchy, even chilling, The Tipping Point is one of the most effective books on science for a general audience in ages. It seems inevitable that "tipping point," like "future shock" or "chaos theory," will soon become one of those ideas that everybody knows--or at least knows by name. --Ron Hogan, Amazon.com
Product Description
The first book to use the unexpected discoveries of neuroscience to help us make the best decisions.
Since Plato, philosophers have described the decision-making process as either rational or emotional: we carefully deliberate, or we blink and go with our gut. But as scientists break open the mind's black box with the latest tools of neuroscience, they re discovering that this is not how the mind works. Our best decisions are a finely tuned blend of both feeling and reason and the precise mix depends on the situation. When buying a house, for example, it s best to let our unconscious mull over the many variables. But when we re picking a stock, intuition often leads us astray. The trick is to determine when to use the different parts of the brain, and to do this, we need to think harder (and smarter) about how we think.
Jonah Lehrer arms us with the tools we need, drawing on cutting-edge research as well as the real-world experiences of a wide range of deciders from airplane pilots and hedge fund investors to serial killers and poker players.
Lehrer shows how people are taking advantage of the new science to make better television shows, win more football games, and improve military intelligence. His goal is to answer two questions that are of interest to just about anyone, from CEOs to firefighters: How does the human mind make decisions? And how can we make those decisions better?
