Speaker: Nazneen Sultana (Managing Director, Grameen Communications)
Title: Role of Grameen group in serving humanity’s pressing needs.
Date&Time: 19 Feb. (Thu.) 2015, 13:15-14:45
Venue: Lecture room1 (3F), Medical Education & Library Building
Summary:
Giving credit without collateral was inconceivable in the history of banking. As a result, the poor had not access to bank credit which is inevitable to foster in the current capitalistic economic system. But, the father of microcredit, Professor Muhammad Yunus, proved that credit can be given to the poor without collateral. Here, collateral is the trust between the lender and the borrower. Since its inception in 1983, Grameen Bank, has been giving collateral free micro-credit to the poor people (97% of them are women) of Bangladesh. With a very short span, the bank and the idea of microcredit became popular throughout the world. As recognition, the bank and its founder were awarded Nobel Peace Prize in 2006.
Bangladesh is beset with rural poverty, malnutrition, low literacy, inadequate health care facilities, low access to technology, lack of good quality clothing etc. Grameen Group created some successful businesses (not for profit, for profit, social business) to combat these problems. The success of Grameen initiatives is largely attributed to active participation & leadership of women. A good number of Grameen Organizations are headed by women.
In late 2007, Professor Muhammad Yunus, came up with another ground breaking idea called ‘Social Business’ which is a non-loss, non-dividend company designed to address a social problem. Investors are recouped their initial investment only, the profits are used to expand the company’s reach and improve the products and/or services. Till now, in collaboration with Grameen Group, more than 50 social business companies have been established by world’s renowned companies including DANONE, INTEL, BASF, UNIQLO, VEOLIA, YUKIGUNI MAITAKE etc. They are successfully playing significant roles to solve social problems. The idea of social business is being widespread; a good number of initiatives are being taken place throughout the world
