Programs: Spotlight, 23 November, 2009

Banker for the poor

Muhammed Yunus, 2006 Nobel Peace Prize winner and Founder of the Grameen Bank

1940 – Born in Bengal, British India (now Bangladesh)
1960 – Graduates, Dhaka University
1961 – Receives MA in economics, Dhaka University
1962 – Lecturer of economics, Chittagong College, Bangladesh
1969 – Assistant professor of economics, MTSU, Tennessee, U.S.
1970 – Receives Ph.D. in economics, Vanderbilt University, U.S.
1972 – Deputy chief, general economics division, planning commission , government of Bangladesh
1972 – Associate professor of economics and head of the department o f economics, Chittagong University, Bangladesh
1975 – Professor of economics, chittagong university and director, r ural economics programme, Chittagong, Bangladesh
1976 – Project director, Grameen Bank project, Bangladesh
1983 – Managing director, Grameen Bank, Bangladesh
1996 – Cabinet minister (advisor) in the caretaker government of Bangladesh
2006 – Awarded Nobel Peace prize
2009 – Awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, U.S.

Today we will talk about banking for the poor. In 1974, during the terrible famine in his native country of Bangladesh, young economist Muhammad Yunus discovered that very small loans could be of huge importance for a poor person, not only saving them from hunger, but helping them to get richer. Now the total amount of borrowers at the Grameen bank is several million people around the world. In 2006, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to create economic and social development from below. Today Muhammad Yunus is our guest at Spotlight.