1.1 Dr.

Muhammad Yunus:

Professor Dr. Muhammad Yunus established the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh in 1983, fueled by the
belief that credit is a fundamental human right. His objective was to help poor people escape from
poverty by providing loans on terms suitable to them and by teaching them a few sound financial
principles so they could help themselves.

From Dr. Yunus’ personal loan of small amounts of money to destitute basketweavers in Bangladesh in
the mid-70s, the Grameen Bank has advanced to the forefront of a burgeoning world movement toward
eradicating poverty through microlending. Replicas of the Grameen Bank model operate in more than
100 countries worldwide.

Born in 1940 in the seaport city of Chittagong, Professor Yunus studied at Dhaka University in
Bangladesh, then received a Fulbright scholarship to study economics at Vanderbilt University. He
received his Ph.D. in economics from Vanderbilt in 1969 and the following year became an assistant
professor of economics at Middle Tennessee State University. Returning to Bangladesh, Yunus headed
the economics department at Chittagong University.

From 1993 to 1995, Professor Yunus was a member of the International Advisory Group for the Fourth
World Conference on Women, a post to which he was appointed by the UN secretary general. He has
served on the Global Commission of Women’s Health, the Advisory Council for Sustainable Economic
Development and the UN Expert Group on Women and Finance.

Professor Yunus is the recipient of numerous international awards for his ideas and endeavors, including
the Mohamed Shabdeen Award for Science (1993), Sri Lanka; Humanitarian Award (1993), CARE, USA;
World Food Prize (1994), World Food Prize Foundation, USA; independence Day Award (1987),
Bangladesh’s highest award; King Hussein Humanitarian Leadership Award (2000), King Hussien
Foundation, Jordan; Volvo Environment Prize (2003), Volvo Environment Prize Foundation, Sweden;
Nikkei Asia Prize for Regional Growth (2004), Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Japan; Franklin D. Roosevelt
Freedom Award (2006), Roosevelt Institute of The Netherlands; and the Seoul Peace Prize (2006), Seoul
Peace Prize Cultural Foundation, Seoul, Korea. He is a member of the board of the United Nations
Foundation.

Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Bank were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 2006 for their work to
"create economic and social development from below". Grameen Bank's objective since its
establishment in 1983 has been to grant poor people small loans on easy terms - so-called micro-credit -
and Yunus was the bank's founder.

In 1972, following studies in Bangladesh and the USA, Yunus was appointed professor of economics at
the University of Chittagong. When Bangladesh suffered a famine in 1974, he felt that he had to do
something more for the poor beyond simply teaching. He decided to give long-term loans to people who
wanted to start their own small enterprises. This initiative was extended on a larger scale through
Grameen Bank.

1.2 Grameen Bank:

Grameen Bank is a microfinance organization and community development bank founded in
Bangladesh. It makes small loans known as microcredit or "grameencredit" to the impoverished without
requiring collateral. Grameen Bank originated in 1976, in the work of Professor Muhammad Yunus at
University of Chittagong.

In October 1983 the Grameen Bank was authorized by national legislation to operate as an independent
bank. The bank grew significantly between 2003 and 2007. In 1998 the Bank's "Low-cost Housing
Program" won a World Habitat Award. In 2006, the bank and its founder, Muhammad Yunus, were
jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. As of 2017, the Bank had about 2,600 branches and nine million
borrowers, with a repayment rate of 99.6%. 97% of the borrowers were women. The Bank has been
active in 97% of the villages of Bangladesh. Its success has inspired similar projects in more than 64
countries around the world, including a World Bank initiative to finance Grameen-type schemes.
Grameen Bank is now expanding into wealthy countries as well. As of 2017, Grameen America had 19
branches in eleven US cities. Its nearly 100,000 borrowers were all women.

1.3 Objective:

The Grameen Bank Project came into process with the following objectives:

a) Extend banking facilities to poor men and women.

b) Eliminate the exploitation of the poor by money lenders.

c) Create opportunities for self-employment for the vast multitude of unemployed people in rural
Bangladesh.

d) Bring the disadvantaged, mostly the women from the poorest households, within the fold of an
organizational format which they can understand and manage by themselves.

e) Reverse the age-old vicious circle of "low income, low saving & low investment", into virtuous circle
of "low income, injection of credit, investment, more income, more savings, more investment, more
income".