Banker to the Poor

Banker to the Poor: The Story of the Grameen Bank

Muhammad Yunus (author), Alan Jolis (author)

Muhammad Yunus set up the Grameen Bank in his home country of Bangladesh with a loan of just [pound]17, to lend tiny amounts of money to the poorest of the poor - those to whom no ordinary bank would lend. Most of his customers - as they still are - were illiterate women, wanting to set up the smallest imaginable village enterprises. It was his conviction that this new system of 'micro-credit', lending even such small sums, would give such people the spark of initiative needed to pull themselves out of poverty. Today, Yunus's system of micro-credit is practised around the world in some 60 countries, including the US, Canada and France. His Grameen Bank is now a billion-pound business. It is acknowledged by world leaders and by the World Bank to be a fundamental weapon in the fight against poverty. Banker to the Poor is Yunus's enthralling story of how he did it: how the terrible famine in Bangladesh in 1974 focused his ideas on the need to enable its victims to grow more food; how he overcame the sceptics in many governments and among traditional economic thinking; and how he saw his micro-credit extended even outside the Third World into credit unions in the West. Such is the importance of his book that HRH the Prince of Wales has contributed a Foreword in which he hails 'a remarkable man [who] spoke the greatest good sense'.

Muhammad Yunus, born in Bangladesh, was educated at Dhaka University and was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to study economics at Vanderbilt University. In 1972, he became head of the economics department at Chittagong University. He is the founder of Grameen Bank and the father of microcredit, an economic movement that has helped lift millions of families around the world out of poverty. He is also the creator of the 'social business' model. Yunus and Grameen Bank are winners of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize.

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Aurum Press Ltd; New edition (11 July 2003)
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 338 pages
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 9781854109248
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 13 x 2.2 x 19.6 cm