Until recently banks had largely ignored micro-credit to rural women and rural Non-Government Organizations (NGO). But the success stories of these NGOs, lower chances of default and higher return from them are forcing the banks to provide finance to such organizations.
When you talk about micro -credit, you can't but think of angladesh's Professor Mohamed Yunus and the Grameen Bank he started, in a very humble way in 1983. Actually his micro-credit enterprise dates back to 1976 when he started lending to poor rural women small sums of money from his own pocket.
I have been to Bangladesh in 1998, primarily to study the working of the Grameen Bank and its allied organizations like Grameen Housing, Grameen Shakti, Grameen Udyog (handloom enterprises), Grameen Motsho (Fisheries), and the like. There are now more than two dozen organizations within the Grameen family of enterprises, making this one of the largest enterprises in Bangladesh.
On November 12, 2002, The New York Times wrote an editorial on micro-credit titled, `Credit for the World's Poorest'. It was but natural that the edit should begin with a tribute to the Grameen Bank. "For someone living on a dollar a day, a loan of a few hundred dollars—to buy sewing machine, a refrigerator or a bicycle—can mean the difference between destitution and a productive life. That was the premise behind Bangladesh's successful Grameen Bank, established 20 years ago, and the global microfinancing movement it helped spawn." |
