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Banker To The Poor: Micro-Lending and the Battle Against World Poverty | 
 enlarge | Author: Muhammad Yunus
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Category: Book
List Price: $15.00
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Avg. Customer Rating:  68 reviews
Sales Rank: 1277
Media: Paperback
Edition: Rev. and Updated for the Pbk. Ed
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 312
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.5 x 0.8
ISBN: 1586481983
Dewey Decimal Number: 332.1095492
EAN: 9781586481988
ASIN: 1586481983
Publication Date: January 8, 2008
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Condition: Standard used condition.
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Amazon.com
It began with a simple $27 loan. After witnessing the cycle of poverty that kept many poor women enslaved to high-interest loan sharks in Bangladesh, Dr. Muhammad Yunus lent money to 42 women so they could purchase bamboo to make and sell stools. In a short time, the women were able to repay the loans while continuing to support themselves and their families. With that initial eye-opening success, the seeds of the Grameen Bank, and the concept of microcredit, were planted. After earning a Ph.D. in economics at Vanderbilt University, Dr. Yunus returned to Bangladesh to settle into a life as a professor. But a famine in 1974 ravaged the country, leading Dr. Yunus to alter his thinking and his life profoundly: "What good were all my complex theories when people were dying of starvation on the sidewalks and porches across from my lecture hall?.... Nothing in the economic theories I taught reflected the life around me." Armed with little more than a lofty dream to end the suffering around him, he started an experimental microcredit enterprise in 1977; by 1983 the Grameen Bank was officially formed. The idea behind the Grameen Bank is ingeniously simple: extend credit to poor people and they will help themselves. This concept strikes at the root of poverty by specifically targeting the poorest of the poor, providing small loans (usually less than $300) to those unable to obtain credit from traditional banks. At Grameen, loans are administered to groups of five people, with only two receiving their money up front. As soon as these two make a few regular payments, loans are gradually extended to the rest of the group. In this way, the program builds a sense of community as well as individual self-reliance. Most of the Grameen Bank's loans are to women, and since its inception, there has been an astonishing loan repayment rate of over 98 percent. Banker to the Poor is an inspiring memoir of the birth of microcredit, written in a conversational tone that makes it both moving and enjoyable to read. The Grameen Bank is now a $2.5 billion banking enterprise in Bangladesh, while the microcredit model has spread to over 50 countries worldwide, from the U.S. to Papua New Guinea, Norway to Nepal. Ever optimistic, Yunus travels the globe spreading the belief that poverty can be eliminated: "...the poor, once economically empowered, are the most determined fighters in the battle to solve the population problem; end illiteracy; and live healthier, better lives. When policy makers finally realize that the poor are their partners, rather than bystanders or enemies, we will progress much faster that we do today." Dr. Yunus's efforts prove that hope is a global currency. --Shawn Carkonen
Product Description
Muhammad Yunus is that rare thing: a bona fide visionary. His dream is the total eradication of poverty from the world. In 1983, against the advice of banking and government officials, Yunus established Grameen, a bank devoted to providing the poorest of Bangladesh with minuscule loans. Grameen Bank, based on the belief that credit is a basic human right, not the privilege of a fortunate few, now provides over 2.5 billion dollars of micro-loans to more than two million families in rural Bangladesh. Ninety-four percent of Yunus's clients are women, and repayment rates are near 100 percent. Around the world, micro-lending programs inspired by Grameen are blossoming, with more than three hundred programs established in the United States alone.
Banker to the Poor is Muhammad Yunus's memoir of how he decided to change his life in order to help the world's poor. In it he traces the intellectual and spiritual journey that led him to fundamentally rethink the economic relationship between rich and poor, and the challenges he and his colleagues faced in founding Grameen. He also provides wise, hopeful guidance for anyone who would like to join him in "putting homelessness and destitution in a museum so that one day our children will visit it and ask how we could have allowed such a terrible thing to go on for so long." The definitive history of micro-credit direct from the man that conceived of it, Banker to the Poor is necessary and inspirational reading for anyone interested in economics, public policy, philanthropy, social history, and business.
Muhammad Yunus was born in Bangladesh and earned his Ph.D. in economics in the United States at Vanderbilt University, where he was deeply influenced by the civil rights movement. He still lives in Bangladesh, and travels widely around the world on behalf of Grameen Bank and the concept of micro-credit.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 63 more reviews...
 economic micro-lending = macro social leverage May 15, 2008
Muhammad Yunus was born in 1940, the third of fourteen children, to an extremely devout Muslim family in Chittagong, the largest port city in Bangladesh. After studies at Chittagong University, and then University of Colorado and Vanderbilt (where he earned his PhD in economics), Yunus returned to help nation-build in Bangladesh, which had declared its independence from Pakistan in 1971. The independence movement had taken its toll; three million people were dead and 10 million were refugees. In 1974, a famine struck.
As he tried to alleviate the broad and deep poverty in his homeland, Yunus came to "dread" his economics lectures. They were tragically far removed from the everyday lives of normal people. In a theme that would characterize much of the rest of his life, Yunus almost completely abandoned classical book learning in favor of listening to and learning directly from the extreme poor -- the millions of Bangladeshis living off two cents a day. In 1976 he loaned $27 to 42 villagers, and thus was born what eventually became the Grameen Bank (grameen means rural). As of the publication of this revised autobiography in 2003, Grameen and its many replicants had made $3.8 billion of micro-loans to 2.4 million families in over 100 countries. The borrowers themselves own 93% of the bank equity, 95% of the loan recipients are women, and the repayment rate on the loans is 98%. For all that, in 2006 Yunus and Grameen won the Nobel Peace Prize (not to mention more than two dozen honorary doctorates).
Yunus is an excellent writer and story-teller. He shares at length about the many criticisms, myths, and prejudices he's had to face, especially from the "obtuse ineptitude" of governments and the sclerotic bureaucracy of aid organizations (he's particularly critical of the World Bank). He has tremendous faith in the initiative, skill, resilience and creativity of the poor. They're the ultimate entrepreneurs. "Not one single Grameen borrower requires any special training" (205), or any collateral, for that matter. Conversely, Yunus also believes that the poor have many things to teach the rich. When the World Bank's president Barber Conable bragged to Yunus about hiring the best minds in the world, he responded that "hiring smart economists does not necessarily translate into policies and programs that help the poor." Spurning conventional wisdom about development aid and economic categories of the liberal left and the free market right, Grameen's success speaks for itself. As a follow up, see Yunus's newest book called Creating a World Without Poverty: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism (New York: Public Affairs, 2008).
 Excellent book about the origins of microcredit May 14, 2008
I had wanted to read this book for awhile and when I finally got to it I was not disappointed. Yunus tells a captivating story that pulls the reader in. While the tone of the book is outspoken, Yunus can back up his tone with real results and a compelling vision for the future of social entrepreneurship and a world without extreme poverty.
He comes down pretty hard on well meaning but ineffective organizations and individuals that are out of touch with the poorest of the poor that he works with. Throughout the book, Yunus shows the depth of his trust in the poor to work for themselves and better their lives without charity.
Definitely a recommended read!
 Should be title "How I succeeded as banker to the poor" May 13, 2008
There is no doubt that the author seems to have done a lot of hopeless people a great service. However, this book really struck me as being more about him, why he is so amazing, and how he repeatedly overcame odds dealing with short-sighted, ignorant, selfish bankers doing things the traditional way. The book would have appealed to me a lot more if he had gone further in explaining why traditional methods failed but were maintained. Also, there was very little frank discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of microfinance. Sounds like maybe I should have read the Wilson Quarterly article instead.
The book was a repetitive sales pitch and could have been a lot more.
Creativity from below : Muhammad Yunus April 26, 2008
Yunus with his Grameen Bank initiative has brought a new notion that the bank can be truly too at the total dedication to the poor not just the rich one. Rural poor women are changing the face of the family situation through this initiative of Grameen Bank that not only bring micro-credit to poor people but also keep introducing new opportunities and creative assets for quenching poverty.
The birth of micro-lending March 29, 2008
Banker to the Poor, is by written Nobel peace prize reciepent, Muhammad Yunus. As a professor in Bangladesh, Yunus, with just twenty-seven dollars of his own money, was the "mid-wife" to micro-lending movement. He parlayed his success into remarkable achievements which have bettered the lives of millions.
It wasn't always easy, and his telling of the story, is inspirational, if somewhat repetitive. You can easily imagine the tears of joy of villagers, who with micro-lending, are able to rise above mere substience living.
He makes the case that much misery is alleviated when micro-lending is available to the poor in the Third World. While Yunus does not say so directly it is easy to extrapolate, that poor people leading better lives do not take up violence. America would be a lot more secure if it took a few millions from "military assistance" and instead invested it in micro-lending.
However, Yunus claims, "everyone" benefits when trade barriers are dropped. Trade barriers have largely been lifted in the apparel industry Consequently, the textile industry in the US employs a mere fraction of workers than it used to. Guess "everyone" doesn't include the tens of thousands of former American texitle workers.
There must be a way, to support the developement of the Third World, without America losing jobs. While Yunus doesn't answer that question, he does have a lot of answers. A five-star book.
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