Let us compete in poverty eradication: Muhammad Yunus

Huned Contractor
OneWorld South Asia

19 November 2007

Nobel laureate and founder of the famous Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, Muhammad Yunus, threw an open challenge to Maharashtra to compete with Bangladesh in eradication of poverty by 2030.

Yunus was in Pune on Nov 17, 2007, to receive the Sakaal Person Of The Year award, established by the Sakaal Group of Publications.

Earlier in the day, while inaugurating an international high-tech agriculture exhibition and convention of women�s self-help groups, Yunus said that poverty in Bangladesh was reducing at two per cent per year thanks to the stellar role played by the Grameen Bank. �We aim to eradicate 50 per cent poverty by 2015 and eliminate it by 2030,� he stated.

A full page advertisement announcing a cash award of $ 10 lakh to anyone who can find a poor person in Bangladesh is what Yunus plans to do when he achieves the target.

Yunus also plans to set up a poverty museum in his country so that the younger generation learns what poverty is all about and vows never to succumb to it. Amidst loud cheers from the crowd, Yunus addressed India�s Union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar and asked him to compete on who builds the first poverty museum.

Elaborating on the role played by Grameen Bank, Yunus said: �The poorest of the poor, those who have no credit-worthiness is our target customer. We seek no collateral, guarantor or paperwork and we don�t allow lawyers as it is not our intention to drag the borrower to court.�

Four years ago, the Grameen Bank started lending to beggars and currently have one lakh beggar-borrowers. �We encouraged them to take up small trading in candy, cookies and toys when they go begging from house to house. This enabled 10,000 beggars to give up begging,� he said.

Further, the primary focus of the Grameen Bank also included forcing the borrowers to send their children to school. �To encourage top performers, the bank gives 30,000 scholarships per year and also offers loans for children to pursue higher education. As many as 18,000 youths have taken advantage of the loan and are pursuing courses in medicine and engineering,� he informed.

Touching upon the issue of how important it is to have good leadership to govern a country, Yunus lamented the fact that Bangladesh does not enjoy the support of its leaders. �Even the self-help group movement and rural banking, started about three decades back that won me a Nobel Prize is not being taken seriously by our leaders,� he rued.

On how the Grameen Bank concept took off, Yunus had this to narrate: �I came face to face with the reality prevailing in my country only after I crossed the wall of the campus where I was working as a professor. I came into contact with the moneylenders whose business it was to suck up the hard earnings of the borrowers. I found 42 such families whose collective loan was only 856 taka. That set me thinking. Couldn�t something be done about this so that borrowers wouldn�t be victimised by the moneylenders?

"When I approached the banks for credit, they refused even though I was willing to be the guarantor. This was a turning point in my life. Who is authorised to decide whether an individual is credit-worthy or not? The loan-seeker must be given a chance to decide if the bank is worthy or not. And that�s how in 1983 I set up the Grameen Bank which now has over 7.5 million borrowers, mostly women.�

Asked for the mantra that has driven him to such success, Yunus said that to be a winner, you have to be an innovator and a visionary.

�It is healthcare, education and technology that is demanding attention today. Once these three fall into place, any nation can achieve progress under any circumstances,� he observed.

Grameen Bank has adopted technology as its core mantra and entered into a joint venture with Intel Corporation. �We do not function in a routine manner. We have to design technology that will mobilise self-employment so that a whole new generation is created,� he said.

User comments

"Eliminating Poverty"

Author: David Chester

Time: 30.11.2007 11:07

Comment: The work of supporting poverty-stricken families to enable them to earn a living is a subject dear to our hearts. However it must be understood that the ability to earn depends on the combination of the three factors of production land, labour and capital (Adam Smith economic theory). You have been providing money to purchase the capital, the poor are the labour force but what of the land?

I suppose that many of the door-to-door sales people that you encourage are in effect using the public land of the towns and villages, namely the streets and paths arround the residences, but this use is not going to be sufficient for all of the poverty to be eliminated. Productive and distributive work requires centers of organization and goods preparation, as well as money collection and exchange and the associated buildings must stand on somebody's land.

The point I am making is that your worthy aim of eliminating all forms of poverty of necessity must include a freeing of the land for all who need to use it without being driven off of it by rack-rentors and speculators in land values by the monopolistic land owners. The answer goes a bit deeper than the better distribution of capital (you way so far), but it means that the method of land tenure must also be changed by force of law.

Since the land is a gift of nature, in theory there should be free access it it. When somebody builds on it or farms it, he should pay for the privilidge according to the value of the land occupied. This kind of revenue collection will encourage the full and better use of the land and allow the poor to compete effectively with the present land owners, some of whom are actually using their land, albeit less efficiently than they should do. The tax money collected is a better way for filling the "national purse" than the present income tax and other production-related taxes which cause the results of production to be less in demand and are part of the reason for the numbers of those poor, who cannot afford more than the bare necessities.

The subject of land value taxation was proposed more than 100 years ago by Henry George and it is the truely long-term way to eliminate poverty because it provides for equality of opportunity in earning a living. Can you add to your shorter-term program this vital and necessary facit?

With best wishes, David Chester.