Muhammad Yunus
Pendidikan
Yunus lahir di
Chittagong, dan belajar di
Chittagong Collegiate School dan
Chittagong College. Kemudian ia melanjutkan ke jenjang
Ph.D. di bidang ekonomi di
Universitas Vanderbilt pada tahun
1969. Selesai kuliah, ia bekerja di
Universitas Chittagong sebagai dosen di bidang
ekonomi. Saat Bangladesh mengalami bencana kelaparan pada tahun
1974, Yunus terjun langsung memerangi kemiskinan dengan cara memberikan pinjaman skala kecil kepada mereka yang sangat membutuhkannya. Ia yakin bahwa pinjaman yang sangat kecil tersebut dapat membuat perubahan yang besar terhadap kemampuan kaum miskin untuk bertahan hidup.
Pada tahun
1976, Yunus mendirikan
Grameen Bank yang memberi pinjaman pada kaum miskin di Bangladesh. Hinggal saat ini, Grameen Bank telah menyalurkan pinjaman lebih dari 3 miliar dolar ke sekitar 2,4 juta peminjam. Untuk menjamin pembayaran utang, Grameen Bank menggunakan sistem "kelompok solidaritas". Kelompok-kelompok ini mengajukan permohonan pinjaman bersama-sama, dan setiap anggotanya berfungsi sebagai penjamin anggota lainnya, sehingga mereka dapat berkembang bersama-sama.
Keberhasilan model Grameen ini telah menginspirasikan model serupa dikembangkan di dunia berkembang lainnya, dan bahkan termasuk di negara maju seperti Amerika Serikat.
Kutipan
“Suatu hari cucu-cucu kita akan harus pergi ke museum untuk melihat seperti apa itu kemiskinan”
- dikutip di "The Independent", 5 May 1996-
English Version
Muhammad Yunus (
Bengali:
মুহাম্মদ ইউনুস, pronounced
Muhammôd Iunus) (born 28 June 1940) is a
Bangladeshi banker and
economist. He previously was a
professor of
economics and is famous for his successful application of
microcredit - the extension of small
loans. These loans are given to
entrepreneurs too poor to qualify for traditional
bank loans. Yunus is also the founder of
Grameen Bank. In 2006, Yunus and the bank were jointly awarded the
Nobel Peace Prize, "for their efforts to create economic and social development from below."
[1] Yunus himself has received several other national and international honors. He is the author of
Banker to the Poor and a founding board member of
Grameen Foundation. In early 2007 Yunus showed interest in launching a political party in Bangladesh named Nagorik Shakti (Citizen Power), but later discarded the plan. He is one of the founding members of
Global Elders. Yunus also serves on the board of directors of the
United Nations Foundation, a public charity created in 1998 with
entrepreneur and
philanthropist Ted Turner’s historic $1 billion gift to support
UN causes. The UN Foundation builds and implements public-private partnerships to address the world’s most pressing problems, and broadens support for the UN.
[2]
Early years
The third oldest of nine children,
[3] Yunus was born on 28 June 1940 to a
Muslim family in the village of Bathua, by the Boxirhat Road in
Hathazari,
Chittagong, then in
British India (now in Bangladesh).
[4][5] His father was Hazi Dula Mia Shoudagar, a jeweler, and his mother was Sofia Khatun. His early childhood years were spent in the village. In 1944, his family moved to the city of
Chittagong, and he was shifted to Lamabazar Primary School from his village school.
[4][6] By 1949, his mother was afflicted with psychological illness.
[5] Later, he passed the matriculation examination from
Chittagong Collegiate School securing the 16th position among 39,000 students in
East Pakistan.
[6]
During his school years, he was an active
Boy Scout, and traveled to West Pakistan and India in 1952, and to Canada in 1955 to attend
Jamborees.
[6] Later when Yunus was studying at
Chittagong College, he became active in cultural activities and won awards for drama acting.
[6] In 1957, he enrolled in the department of
economics at
Dhaka University and completed his
BA in 1960 and
MA in 1961.
Following his graduation, Yunus joined the Bureau of Economics as a research assistant to the economical researches of
Professor Nurul Islam and
Rehman Sobhan.
[6] Later he was appointed as a lecturer in economics in
Chittagong College in 1961.
[6] During that time he also set up a profitable
packaging factory on the side.
[5] He was offered a
Fulbright scholarship in 1965 to study in the United States. He obtained his
Ph.D. in economics from
Vanderbilt University in the United States through the
graduate program in Economic Development (GPED) in 1971.
[7] From 1969 to 1972, Yunus was an assistant professor of economics at
Middle Tennessee State University in
Murfreesboro,
TN.
During the
Liberation War of Bangladesh in 1971, Yunus founded a citizen's committee and ran the Bangladesh Information Center, with other Bangladeshis living in the United States, to raise support for liberation.
[6] He also published the
Bangladesh Newsletter from his home in
Nashville. After the War, Yunus returned to Bangladesh and was appointed to the government's Planning Commission headed by
Nurul Islam. He found the job boring and resigned to join
Chittagong University as head of the Economics department.
[8]
He became involved with
poverty reduction after observing the
famine of 1974, and established a rural economic program as a research project. In 1975, he developed a Nabajug (New Era) Tebhaga Khamar (three share farm) which the government adopted as the Packaged Input Programme.
[6] In order to make the project more effective, Yunus and his associates proposed the
Gram Sarkar (the village government) programme.
[9] Introduced by then president
Ziaur Rahman in late 1970s, the Government formed 40,392 village governments (gram sarkar) as a fourth layer of government in 2003. On 2 August 2005, in response to a petition filed by Bangladesh Legal Aids and Services Trust (BLAST) the High Court had declared Gram Sarkar illegal and unconstitutional.
[10]
Grameen Bank
Grameen Bank Head Office at Mirpur-2,
Dhaka
Main article: Grameen Bank
In 1976, during visits to the poorest households in the village of Jobra near
Chittagong University, Yunus discovered that very small loans could make a disproportionate difference to a poor person. Jobra women who made
bamboo furniture had to take out
usurious loans for buying bamboo, to pay their profits to the moneylenders. His first loan, consisting of
USD 27.00 from his own pocket, was made to 42 women in the village, who made a net profit of
BDT 0.50 (USD 0.02) each on the loan. Thus, vastly improving Bangladesh's ability to export and import as it did in the past, resulting in a greater form of globalization and economic status.
[4]
The concept of providing credit to the poor as a tool of poverty reduction was not unique. Dr.
Akhtar Hameed Khan, founder of Pakistan Academy for Rural Development (now
Bangladesh Academy for Rural Development), is credited for pioneering the idea.
[11] From his experience at Jobra, Yunus, an admirer of Dr. Hameed
[11], realized that the creation of an institution was needed to lend to those who had nothing.
[12] While traditional
banks were not interested in making tiny loans at reasonable interest rates to the poor due to high repayment risks
[13], Yunus believed that given the chance the poor will repay the borrowed money and hence
microcredit could be a viable
business model.
Yunus finally succeeded in securing a loan from the government
Janata Bank to lend it to the poor in Jobra in December 1976. The institution continued to operate by securing loans from other banks for its projects. By 1982, the bank had 28,000 members. On 1 October 1983 the pilot project began operations as a full-fledged bank and was renamed the
Grameen Bank (
Village Bank) to make loans to poor Bangladeshis. Yunus and his colleagues encountered everything from violent radical leftists to the conservative clergy who told women that they would be denied a Muslim burial if they borrowed money from the Grameen Bank.
[5] As of July 2007, Grameen Bank has issued US$ 6.38 billion to 7.4 million borrowers.
[14] To ensure repayment, the bank uses a system of "solidarity groups". These small informal groups apply together for loans and its members act as co-guarantors of repayment and support one another's efforts at economic self-advancement.
[9]
The Grameen Bank started to diversify in the late 1980s when it started attending to unutilized or underutilized fishing ponds, as well as irrigation pumps like deep tubewells.
[15] In 1989, these diversified interests started growing into separate organizations, as the fisheries project became
Grameen Motsho (Grameen Fisheries Foundation) and the irrigation project became
Grameen Krishi (Grameen Agriculture Foundation).
[15] Over time, the Grameen initiative has grown into a multi-faceted group of profitable and non-profit ventures, including major projects like
Grameen Trust and
Grameen Fund, which runs equity projects like
Grameen Software Limited,
Grameen CyberNet Limited, and
Grameen Knitwear Limited,
[16] as well as
Grameen Telecom, which has a stake in
Grameenphone (GP), biggest private sector phone company in Bangladesh.
[17]. The
Village Phone (Polli Phone) project of GP has brought cell-phone ownership to 260,000 rural poor in over 50,000 villages since the beginning of the project in March 1997.
[18]
The success of the Grameen model of microfinancing has inspired similar efforts in a hundred countries throughout the
developing world and even in
industrialized nations, including the United States.
[19] Many, but not all, microcredit projects also retain its emphasis on lending specifically to women. More than 94% of Grameen loans have gone to women, who suffer disproportionately from poverty and who are more likely than men to devote their earnings to their families.
[20] For his work with the Grameen Bank, Yunus was named an
Ashoka: Innovators for the Public Global Academy Member in 2001.
[21]
- Further information: Grameen family of organizations
Recognitions
-
Muhammad Yunus was awarded the 2006
Nobel Peace Prize, along with Grameen Bank, for their efforts to create economic and social development. In the prize announcement The
Norwegian Nobel Committee mentioned:
[1]
Muhammad Yunus has shown himself to be a leader who has managed to translate visions into practical action for the benefit of millions of people, not only in Bangladesh, but also in many other countries. Loans to poor people without any financial security had appeared to be an impossible idea. From modest beginnings three decades ago, Yunus has, first and foremost through Grameen Bank, developed micro-credit into an ever more important instrument in the struggle against poverty.
Muhammad Yunus was the first
Bangladeshi and third
Bengali to ever get a Nobel Prize. After receiving the news of the important award, Yunus announced that he would use part of his share of the $1.4 million award money to create a company to make low-cost, high-nutrition food for the poor; while the rest would go toward setting up an eye hospital for the poor in Bangladesh.
[22]
Former U.S. president
Bill Clinton was a vocal advocate for the awarding of the Nobel Prize to Muhammed Yunus. He expressed this in
Rolling Stone magazine
[23] as well as in his autobiography
My Life.[24] In a speech given at
University of California, Berkeley in 2002, President Clinton described Dr. Yunus as "a man who long ago should have won the Nobel Prize [and] I’ll keep saying that until they finally give it to him."
[25]
Conversely,
The Economist stated explicitly that Yunus was a poor choice for the award. In their words "...the Nobel committee could have made a braver, more difficult, choice by declaring that there would be no recipient at all."
[26]
He has won a number of other awards, including the
Ramon Magsaysay Award,
[27] the
World Food Prize[28] the
Sydney Peace Prize,
[29] and in December 2007 the Ecuadorian Peace Prize
[30]. Additionally, Dr. Yunus has been awarded 26
honorary doctorate degrees, and 15 special awards.
[31] Bangladesh government brought out a commemorative stamp to honor his Nobel Award.
[32] In January 2008,
Houston,
Texas declared 14 January as "Muhammad Yunus Day".
[33]
He was invited and gave the
MIT commencement address delivered on 6 June 2008.
[34]
Political activity
In early 2006 Yunus, along with other members of the civil society including Prof
Rehman Sobhan, Justice
Muhammad Habibur Rahman, Dr
Kamal Hossain,
Matiur Rahman,
Mahfuz Anam and
Debapriya Bhattchariya, participated in a campaign for honest and clean candidates in national elections.
[35] He considered entering politics in the later part of that year.
[36] On 11 February 2007, Yunus wrote an open letter, published in the Bangladeshi newspaper
Daily Star, where he asked citizens for views on his plan to float a political party to establish political goodwill, proper leadership and good governance. In the letter, he called on everyone to briefly outline how he should go about the task and how they can contribute to it.
[37]
Yunus finally announced the foundation of a new party tentatively called
Citizens' Power (
Nagorik Shakti) on 18 February 2007.
[38][39] There was speculation that the army supported a move by Yunus into politics.
[40] On 3 May, however, Yunus declared that he had decided to abandon his political plans following a meeting with the head of the interim government,
Fakhruddin Ahmed.
[41]
On 18 July 2007 in
Johannesburg, South Africa,
Nelson Mandela,
Graça Machel, and
Desmond Tutu convened a group of world leaders to contribute their wisdom, independent leadership and integrity together to the world. Nelson Mandela announced the formation of this new group, The
Global Elders, in a speech he delivered on the occasion of his 89th birthday.
[42][43] Archbishop Tutu is to serve as the Chair of The Elders. The founding members of this group include Machel, Yunus,
Kofi Annan,
Ela Bhatt,
Gro Harlem Brundtland,
Jimmy Carter,
Li Zhaoxing, and
Mary Robinson. The Elders are to be independently funded by a group of Founders, including
Richard Branson,
Peter Gabriel, Ray Chambers; Michael Chambers; Bridgeway Foundation; Pam Omidyar, Humanity United; Amy Robbins; Shashi Ruia, Dick Tarlow; and The
United Nations Foundation.
Family
In 1967 while Yunus attended
Vanderbilt University, he met Vera Forostenko, a student of
Russian literature at Vanderbilt University and daughter of Russian immigrants to
Trenton,
New Jersey, U.S. They were married in 1970.
[8][5] Yunus's marriage with Vera ended within months of the birth of their baby girl,
Monica Yunus (b. 1979
Chittagong), as Vera returned to New Jersey claiming that Bangladesh was not a good place to raise a baby.
[8][5] Yunus later married Afrozi Yunus, who was then a researcher in
physics at
Manchester University.
[8] She was later appointed as a professor of physics at
Jahangirnagar University. Their daughter Deena Afroz Yunus was born in 1986.
[8]
His brothers are also active in academia. His brother Muhammad Ibrahim is a professor of physics at
Dhaka University and the founder of The Center for Mass Education in Science (CMES), which brings science education to adolescent girls in villages.
[44] His younger brother Muhammad Jahangir is a popular television presenter. Monica, the eldest daughter of Yunus, is a
Bangladeshi-
Russian American soprano singer, working in New York City.
[45]
Africa Progress Panel
Yunus is a member of the
Africa Progress Panel (APP), an independent authority on Africa launched in April 2007 to focus world leaders’ attention on delivering their commitments to the continent. The Panel launched a major report in London on Monday 16 June 2008 entitled
Africa's Development: Promises and Prospects[46].
Books
- By Muhammad Yunus
- A World Without Poverty: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism; Public Affairs; 2008; ISBN 9781586484934
- Banker to the Poor: Micro-Lending and the Battle Against World Poverty; Public Affairs; 2003; ISBN 9781586481988
- Grameen Bank, as I See it; Grameen Bank; 1994
- Jorimon and Others: Faces of Poverty (co-authors: Saiyada Manajurula Isalama, Arifa Rahman); Grameen Bank; 1991
- Planning in Bangladesh: Format, Technique, and Priority, and Other Essays; Rural Studies Project, Department of Economics, Chittagong University; 1976
- Three Farmers of Jobra; Department of Economics, Chittagong University; 1974
- On Muhammad Yunus
- David Bornstein; The Price of a Dream: The Story of the Grameen Bank and the Idea That Is; Simon & Schuster; 1996; ISBN 068481191X
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