Grameen Bank and Dr.

Muhammad Yunus

Introduction:

Muhammad Yunus(born 28 June 1940) is a Bangladeshi social entrepreneur, banker,

economist, and civil society leader who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for founding
the Grameen Bank and pioneering the concepts of microcredit and microfinance. These
loans are given to entrepreneurs too poor to qualify for traditional bank loans. In 2006,
Yunus and the Grameen Bank were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize "for their
efforts through microcredit to create economic and social development from below". The
Norwegian Nobel Committee said that "lasting peace cannot be achieved unless large
population groups find ways in which to break out of poverty" and that "across cultures
and civilizations, Yunus and Grameen Bank have shown that even the poorest of the poor
can work to bring about their own development". Yunus has received several other
national and international honours. He received the United States Presidential Medal of
Freedom in 2009 and the Congressional Gold Medal in 2010.

In 2008, he was rated number 2 in Foreign Policy magazine's list of the 'Top 100 Global
Thinkers'. In February 2011, Yunus together with Saskia Bruysten, Sophie Eisenmann
and Hans Reitz co-founded Yunus Social Business – Global Initiatives (YSB). YSB
creates and empowers social businesses to address and solve social problems around the
world. As the international implementation arm for Yunus' vision of a new, humane
capitalism, YSB manages incubator funds for social businesses in developing countries
and provides advisory services to companies, governments, foundations and NGOs.

In 2012, he became Chancellor of Glasgow Caledonian University in Scotland. He is a

member of the advisory board at Shahjalal University of Science and Technology.
Previously, he was a professor of economics at Chittagong University in Bangladesh. He
published several books related to his finance work. He is a founding board member of
Grameen America and Grameen Foundation, which support microcredit.

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Yunus also serves on the board of directors of the United Nations Foundation, a public
charity created in 1998 by American philanthropist Ted Turner's $1 billion gift to support
UN causes.

In March 2011, the Bangladesh government fired Yunus from his position at Grameen
Bank, citing legal violations and an age limit on his position. Bangladesh's High Court
affirmed the removal on 8 March. Yunus and Grameen Bank are appealing the decision,
claiming Yunus' removal was politically motivated.

28 June 1940 (age 76)

Born Chittagong, Bengal Presidency,
British India
Nationality Bangladeshi

 University of Chittagong
 Shahjalal University of
Science and Technology
 Middle Tennessee State
Institution
University

 Glasgow Caledonian
University
 Microcredit theory
Field
 Development economics
School or
Microcredit
tradition
 University of Dhaka
 University of Colorado,
Alma mater Boulder

 Vanderbilt University

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  Grameen Bank
Contributions
 Microcredit
 Ramon Magsaysay Award
(1984)
 Independence Day Award
(1987)

 World Food Prize (1994)

 Pfeffer Peace Prize (1994)
 Gandhi Peace Prize (2000)
 Volvo Environment Prize
Awards (2003)
 Nobel Peace Prize (2006)
 Presidential Medal of Freedom
(2009)
 Congressional Gold Medal
(2010)

 Aga Khan Award for

Architecture
Information at IDEAS / RePEc

Early life and education

The third of nine children, Yunus was born on 28 June 1940 to a Bengali Muslim family
in the village of Bathua, by the Boxirhat Road in Hathazari, Chittagong in the Bengal
Presidency of the British Raj, which today forms modern Bangladesh. His father was
Hazi Dula Mia Shoudagar, a jeweler, and his mother was Sufia Khatun. His early
childhood was spent in the village. In 1944, his family moved to the city of Chittagong,
and he moved from his village school to Lamabazar Primary School. By 1949, his mother
was afflicted with psychological illness. Later, he passed the matriculation examination

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from Chittagong Collegiate School ranking 16th of 39,000 students in East Pakistan.
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. Later while Yunus studied at
Chittagong College, he became active in cultural activities and won awards for drama. In
1957, he enrolled in the Department of Economics at Dhaka University and completed
his BA in 1960 and MA in 1961.

After graduation

After his graduation, Yunus joined the Bureau of Economics as a research assistant to the
economics researches of Professor Nurul Islam and Rehman Sobhan. Later, he was
appointed lecturer in economics in Chittagong College in 1961. During that time, he also
set up a profitable packaging factory on the side. In 1965, he received a Fulbright
scholarship to study in the United States. He obtained his PhD in economics from the
Vanderbilt University Graduate Program in Economic Development (GPED) in 1971.
From 1969 to 1972, Yunus was assistant professor of economics at Middle Tennessee
State University in Murfreesboro.

During the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971, Yunus founded a citizen's committee and
ran the Bangladesh Information Center, with other Bangladeshis in the United States, to
raise support for liberation. He also published the Bangladesh Newsletter from his home
in Nashville. After the War, he returned to Bangladesh and was appointed to the
government's Planning Commission headed by Nurul Islam. However, he found the job
boring and resigned to join Chittagong University as head of the Economics department.
After observing the famine of 1974, he became involved in poverty reduction 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. In order to make the project more effective, Yunus and
his associates proposed the Gram Sarkar (the village government) programme.
Introduced by president Ziaur Rahman in the late 1970s, the Government formed 40,392
village governments as a fourth layer of government in 2003. On 2 August 2005, in

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response to a petition by Bangladesh Legal Aids and Services Trust (BLAST) the High
Court had declared village governments illegal and unconstitutional.

His concept of microcredit for supporting innovators in multiple developing countries

also inspired programs such as the Infolady Social Entrepreneurship Programme.

Early career (Grameen Bank)

Grameen Bank Head Office at Mirpur-2, Dhaka

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. Village women who made bamboo furniture had to take
usurious loans to buy bamboo, and repay their profits to the lenders. Traditional banks did
not want to make tiny loans at reasonable interest to the poor due to high risk of default.
But Yunus believed that, given the chance, the poor will repay the money and hence
microcredit was a viable business model. Yunus lent US$27 of his money to 42 women in
the village, who made a profit of BDT 0.50 (US$0.02) each on the loan. Thus, Yunus is
credited with the idea of microcredit alongside Dr. Akhtar Hameed Khan, founder of the
Pakistan Academy for Rural Development (now Bangladesh Academy for Rural
Development), whom Yunus greatly admired.

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In December 1976, Yunus finally secured a loan from the government Janata Bank to
lend to the poor in Jobra. The institution continued to operate, securing loans from other
banks for its projects. By 1982, it had 28,000 members. On 1 October 1983, the pilot
project began operation as a full-fledged bank for poor Bangladeshis and was renamed
Grameen Bank ("Village Bank"). Yunus and his colleagues encountered everything from
violent radical leftists to conservative clergy who told women that they would be denied a
Muslim burial if they borrowed money from Grameen. By July 2007, Grameen had
issued US$6.38 billion to 7.4 million borrowers. 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.

In the late 1980s, Grameen started to diversify by attending to underutilized fishing ponds
and irrigation pumps like deep tube wells. In 1989, these diversified interests started
growing into separate organizations. The fisheries project became Grameen Motsho
("Grameen Fisheries Foundation") and the irrigation project became Grameen Krishi
("Grameen Agriculture Foundation"). In time, the Grameen initiative grew 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, as well as
Grameen Telecom, which has a stake in Grameenphone (GP), the biggest private phone
company in Bangladesh. From its start in March 1997 to 2007, GP's Village Phone (Polli
Phone) project had brought cell-phone ownership to 260,000 rural poor in over 50,000
villages.

The success of the Grameen microfinance model inspired similar efforts in about 100
developing countries and even in developed countries including the United States. Many
microcredit projects retain Grameen's emphasis of lending 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.

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For his work with Grameen, Yunus was named an Ashoka: Innovators for the Public
Global Academy Member in 2001. In the book Grameen Social Business Model, its
author Rashidul Bari said that Grameen's social business model (GSBM) has gone from
being theory to an inspiring practice adopted by leading universities (e.g., Glasgow),
entrepreneurs (e.g., Franck Riboud) and corporations (e.g., Danone) across the globe.
Through Grameen Bank, Rashidul Bari claims that Yunus demonstrated how Grameen
Social Business Model can harness the entrepreneurial spirit to empower poor women
and alleviate their poverty. One conclusion Bari suggested to draw from Yunus' concepts
is that the poor are like a "bonsai tree", and they can do big things if they get access to the
social business that holds potential to empower them to become self-sufficient.

Recognition

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:

Yunus at the Grand Hotel in Oslo, Norway

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.

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Yunus was the first Bangladeshi 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.

Former US president Bill Clinton was a vocal advocate for the awarding of the Nobel
Prize to Yunus. He expressed this in Rolling Stone magazine as well as in his
autobiography My Life. In a speech given at University of California, Berkeley in 2002,
President Clinton described Yunus as "a man who long ago should have won the Nobel
Prize [in Economics and] I'll keep saying that until they finally give it to him."
Conversely, The Economist stated explicitly that while Yunus was doing excellent work
to fight poverty, it was not appropriate to award him the Peace Prize, stating: "... the
Nobel committee could have made a braver, more difficult, choice by declaring that there
would be no recipient at all."

Muhammad Yunus at the Annual Meeting 2009 of the World Economic Forum in Davos,
Switzerland

He is one of only seven persons to have won the Nobel Peace Prize, Presidential Medal
of Freedom, and the Congressional Gold Medal. Other notable awards include the Ramon
Magsaysay Award in 1984, the World Food Prize, the International Simon Bolivar Prize
(1996), the Prince of Asturias Award for Concord and the Sydney Peace Prize in 1998,
and the Seoul Peace Prize in 2006. Additionally, Yunus has been awarded 50 honorary
doctorate degrees from universities across 20 countries, and 113 international awards
from 26 different countries including state honours from 10 countries. Bangladesh
government brought out a commemorative stamp to honour his Nobel Award.

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Yunus was named by Fortune Magazine in March 2012 as one of 12 greatest
entrepreneurs of the current era. In its citation, Fortune Magazine said "Yunus' idea
inspired countless numbers of young people to devote themselves to social causes all
over the world."

Yunus was named "Nobel-Laureate-in-Residence" at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia

(National University of Malaysia) on 15 July 2011.

Yunus delivered the Seventh Nelson Mandela Annual Lecture.

In January 2008, Houston, Texas declared 14 January as "Muhammad Yunus Day".

On 15 May 2010, Yunus gave the commencement speech at Rice University for the
graduating class of 2010. On 16 May 2010, Yunus gave the commencement speech at
Duke University for the graduating class of 2010. During this ceremony, he was also
awarded an honorary degree, Doctor of Humane Letters. On 11 June 2016, Yunus gave
the commencement speech at UC San Diego for the graduating class of 2016.

Yunus was invited and gave the Wharton School of Business commencement address on
17 May 2009, the MIT commencement address on 6 June 2008, Adam Smith Lecture at
Glasgow University on 1 December 2008 and Oxford's Romanes Lecture on 2 December
2008.

He received the Dwight D. Eisenhower Medal for Leadership and Service from the
Eisenhower Fellowships at a ceremony in Philadelphia on 21 May 2009. He was also
voted 2nd in Prospect Magazine's 2008 global poll of the world's top 100 intellectuals.

Yunus was named among the most desired thinkers the world should listen to by the FP
100 (world's most influential elite) in the December 2009 issue of Foreign Policy
magazine. On 1 March 2010, Yunus was awarded the prestigious Presidential Award from
the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. This is the highest honour available
from the University.

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Muhammad Yunus with Brazilian President Lula Da Silva in 2008 after winning Nobel
Peace Prize

A documentary on Yunus' work titled To Catch a Dollar was shown at the 2010 Sundance
Film Festival and is due to be released in theatres in the US on September 2010.

In 2010, The British Magazine New Statesman listed Yunus at 40th in the list of "The
World's 50 Most Influential Figures 2010".

In October 2010, He received the Social Entrepreneur of the Year Award at The Asian
Awards.

On 22 September 2011 the documentary film, Bonsai People – The Vision of Muhammad
Yunus, the first documentary film that looks his full body of work from microcredit to
social business, premiered at the United Nations.

Yunus received 50 honorary doctorate degrees from universities from Argentina,

Australia, Bangladesh, Belgium, Canada, Costa Rica, India, Italy, Japan, Korea, Lebanon,
Malaysia, Peru, Russia, South Africa, Spain, Thailand, Turkey, the UK, and the US.

United Nations Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon, invited Yunus to serve as an MDG
Advocate. Yunus sits on the Board of United Nations Foundation, Schwab Foundation,
Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation, Grameen Credit Agricole Microcredit
Foundation. He has been a member of Fondation Chirac's honour committee, ever since
the foundation was launched in 2008 by former French president Jacques Chirac in order
to promote world peace.

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Yunus has appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Oprah Winfrey Show in
2006, The Colbert Report in 2008, Real Time with Bill Maher in 2009 and The Simpsons
in 2010. On Google+, Yunus is one of the most followed person worldwide, with over
two million followers.

In 2012 Yunus was installed as Chancellor of Glasgow Caledonian University. US House

and Senate leaders held a ceremony to present Yunus with the Congressional Gold Medal
on 17 April 2013 in Washington, D.C. for his contributions to the fight against global
poverty.

The Congressional Gold Medal is the highest civilian honor bestowed by the United
States Congress. At the ceremony, which you can watch on YouTube, Sen. Dick Durbin
(D-IL) explained why Yunus is such a visionary: "It's been said that almost anyone can
make something complicated. It takes a genius to make something simple. My friends,
make no mistake; Muhammad Yunus is a genius." The gold medal was awarded to Yunus
with the 111th Congress Public Law 253.

Political activity

Yunus (right) at a book signing at the London School of Economics

In early 2006 Yunus, along with other members of the civil society including Professor
Rehman Sobhan, Justice Muhammad Habibur Rahman, Dr Kamal Hossain, Matiur
Rahman, Mahfuz Anam and Debapriya Bhattacharya, participated in a campaign for
honest and clean candidates in national elections. He considered entering politics in the
later part of that year. On 11 February 2007, Yunus wrote an open letter, published in the

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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. Yunus finally announced that he is willing to launch a
political party tentatively called Citizens' Power (Nagorik Shakti) on 18 February 2007.
There was speculation that the army supported a move by Yunus into politics. 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.

In 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 to tackle some of the world's toughest problems."
Nelson Mandela announced the formation of this new group, The Elders, in a speech he
delivered on the occasion of his 89th birthday. Yunus attended the launch of the group
and was one of its founding members. He stepped down as an Elder in September 2009,
stating that he was unable to do justice to his membership due to the demands of his
work.

Yunus is a member of the Africa Progress Panel (APP), a group of ten distinguished
individuals who advocate at the highest levels for equitable and sustainable development
in Africa. Every year, the Panel releases a report, the Africa Progress Report, that outlines
an issue of immediate importance to the continent and suggests a set of associated
policies. In 2012, the Africa Progress Report highlighted issues of Jobs, Justice, and
Equity. The 2013 report will outline issues relating to oil, gas, and mining in Africa.

In July 2009, Yunus became a member of the SNV Netherlands Development

Organisation International Advisory Board to support the organisation's poverty reduction
work.

Since 2010, Yunus has served as a Commissioner for the Broadband Commission for
Digital Development, a UN initiative which seeks to use broadband internet services to
accelerate social and economic development.

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He also serves on the advisory board of the Holcim Foundation for Sustainable
Construction, a foundation supporting initiatives that combine sustainable construction
solutions with architectural excellence.

In 2011, Yunus was part of the Jury which chose the universal Logo for Human Rights.
Its goal was to create an internationally recognised logo to support the global human
rights movement. In March 2016, he was appointed by United Nations Secretary-General
Ban Ki-moon to the High-Level Commission on Health Employment and Economic
Growth, which was co-chaired by presidents François Hollande of France and Jacob
Zuma of South Africa.

Controversies

Yunus at One Young World 2011 in Zurich

Since late November 2010, several allegations have been made against Yunus. They
started with a critique of microcredit and blame of Grameen Bank on several points in the
documentary "Caught in Micro Debt" on Norwegian television on 30 November 2010.
This developed at a time when larger questions were being raised about the benefits of
microfinance and its effects on poverty alleviation, particularly regarding several
microfinance institutions (MFIs) in India and Mexico.

The allegations against Yunus became political when the government of Bangladesh – led
by Sheikh Hasina turned against him and the concept of microfinance, accusing it of
"sucking blood from the poor". Hasina reportedly viewed Yunus as a political rival since
Yunus considered creating a political party in 2007. In the book Grameen Social Business
Model, its author Rashidul Bari compared the political opposition in Bangladesh by

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Sheikh Hasina against Yunus as a replay of the conflict between Pope Urban VIII and
Galileo Galilei.

Pope Urban VIII ... put 70-year-old Galileo in prison in 1632 for condemning and
rejecting Ptolemy's geocentric model, which was adopted by the early Christian Church.
In the same spirit, Sheikh Hasina ... who labeled Yunus as a "blood sucker of poor
people"—unleashed her propaganda machine (e.g., AMA Muhith) to remove Yunus from
Grameen—and used the High Court and Supreme Court to justify her illegal decision.
Why did Pope Urban VIII insult the Father of Astronomy? Because Galileo rejected the
accepted Christian Church view, that the earth is the center of the universe, and that all
other celestial objects orbit around it. Why has Hasina insulted the Father of Microcredit?
Because, in 2007, Yunus criticized Hasina, accusing her of corruption.

The Government announced a review of Grameen Bank activities on 11 January 2011,

which is ongoing. In February, several international leaders, such as Mary Robinson,
stepped up their defence of Yunus through a number of efforts, including the founding of
a formal network of supporters known as "Friends of Grameen".

On 15 February 2011, the Finance Minister of Bangladesh, Abul Maal Abdul Muhith,
declared that Yunus should "stay away" from Grameen Bank while it is being
investigated. On 2 March 2011, Muzammel Huq – a former Bank employee, whom the
government had appointed Chairman in January – announced that Yunus had been fired
as Managing Director of the Bank. However, Bank General Manager Jannat-E Quanine
issued a statement that Yunus was "continuing in his office" pending review of the legal
issues surrounding the controversy .

In March 2011, Yunus petitioned the Bangladesh High Court challenging the legality of
the decision by the Bangladeshi Central Bank to remove him as Managing Director of
Grameen Bank. The same day, nine elected directors of Grameen Bank filed a second
petition. Following Hillary Clinton, John Kerry expressed his support to Yunus in a
statement on 5 March 2011 and declared that he was "deeply concerned" by this affair.
The same day in Bangladesh, thousands of people protested and formed human chains to

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support Yunus. The High Court hearing on the petitions, was planned for 6 March 2011
but postponed. On 8 March 2011, the Court confirmed Yunus's dismissal.

Allegations of embezzlement

A Danish documentary, Caught in Micro Debt, produced and directed by journalist Tom
Heinemann, aired on Norwegian national television NRK in November 2010. It made a
number of allegations against Yunus and Grameen Bank. Those allegations were
disproved by later inquiries. The documentary falsely accused Yunus and Grameen Bank
of diverting 7 billion taka (about 100 million US dollars) given by the Norwegian Agency
for Development Cooperation (NORAD) from Grameen Bank to another organisation
called Grameen Kalyan in 1996. This allegation was widely spread in the Bangladeshi
electronic media in December 2010. On 6 December, NORAD published a statement
clearing Yunus and the Bank from any wrongdoing on this point, following a
comprehensive review of NORAD's support commissioned by the Minister of
International Development.

However, the allegations quickly spread through the Bangladesh media. Leading
Bangladeshi economist Rehman Sobhan stated "Rather than first seeking clarification and
response from Grameen Bank as to the validity of the TV program, some sections of the
media and society pounced on it with unseemly enthusiasm, using it as an opportunity to
cite wrongdoing in a widely respected organization." Yunus asked for consistent and
transparent investigations on these matters. Canadian author and social worker of
Bangladeshi origin Reza Sattar has written about Yunus involvement in microcredit loan
conspiracy and how it has affected the economy of Bangladesh in his book - Siege Nobel
Foundation.

Accusation of 'loan sharking' and effectiveness of microfinance

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Yunus at an opening ceremony of his new book in New York City

The allegations against Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Bank were made in a context
where some people began to question the effectiveness of microfinance, prompted by the
actions of some for-profit microfinance institutions (MFIs) in India and Mexico.
Coercion, peer pressure and physical harassment were reportedly used as loan repayment
practices in some specific MFIs. Commercialization of microcredit prompted Yunus to
state that he "never imagined that one day microcredit would give rise to its own breed of
loan sharks."

The lure of profits attracted some for-profit MFIs to hold initial public offerings (IPOs),
including the largest Indian MFI, SKS Microfinance, which held an IPO in July 2010. In
September 2010, Yunus criticized the IPO; in a debate with SKS founder Vikram Akula
during the Clinton Global Initiative meeting, he said, "Microcredit is not about exciting
people to make money off the poor. That's what you're doing. That's the wrong message
completely." Calculations of actual interest rate vary, but one estimate puts average
Grameen rates at about a 23% interest rate (comparable to the inflation rate). At the same
time the organization enjoyed a tax-free status for a period of several years which now
has been removed.

Sympathizers of Yunus allege that the government of Bangladesh is exploiting this

"moral crisis around microcredit" to oust Yunus.

Political motivations behind the allegations

Though Grameen Bank was quickly cleared by the Norwegian government of all
allegations surrounding misused or misappropriated funds in December 2010, in March
2011 the Bangladeshi government launched a three-month investigation of all Grameen

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Bank's activities. This inquiry prevented Muhammad Yunus from participating in the
World Economic Forum.

In January 2011, Yunus appeared in court in a defamation case filed by a local politician
from a minor left-leaning party in 2007, complaining about a statement that Yunus made
to the AFP news agency, "Politicians in Bangladesh only work for power. There is no
ideology here". At the hearing, Yunus was granted bail and exempted from personal
appearance at subsequent hearings.

These investigations fueled suspicion that many attacks might be politically motivated,
due to difficult relations between Sheikh Hasina and Yunus since early 2007, when Yunus
created his own political party, an effort he dropped in May 2007.

Transition to new management

At 72 years old, he was 12 years beyond the legal retirement age for civil servants in
Bangladesh in 2011. Government spokespersons called for Yunus to step down and
declared, "We need to redefine the bank's role and bring it under closer regulation."

The government as chairman Muzammel Huq, himself a foundational figure of the

Grameen Bank and one of senior managers together with Yunus of GB Research and
Operations until the early 2000s. He has publicly criticised Yunus, saying, "I think he is a
good man with a small heart ... He cannot give credit to anyone but himself".

Allegations involving partners: the food case and the phone case

On 27 January 2011, Yunus appeared in court in a food-adulteration case filed by the

Dhaka City Corporation (DCC) Food Safety Court, accusing him of producing an
"adulterated" yogurt whose fat content was below the legal minimum. This yogurt is
produced by Grameen Danone, a social business joint venture between Grameen Bank
and Danone that aims to provide opportunities for street vendors who sell the yogurt and
to improve child nutrition with the nutrient-fortified yogurt. According to Yunus's lawyer,

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the allegations are "false and baseless". At the request of Yunus's lawyers, pointing
procedural irregularities and errors, this case is now considered by the High Court.

On 15 February 2011, Yunus was summoned by a court in Pabna (in North Bangladesh)
to appear on 18 April in a fraud case involving Grameen Phone. This case concerns a
Grameen village phone user, who received overdue bills although she had paid the bills
regularly.

Investigation by an 2012 independent public commission examining the Grameen Bank

assert that Yunus misrepresented his authority and abused his powers during his tenure in
management. The report establishes that legal challenges exist for authority of the
Grameen Bank to have acted as guarantor and to have forwarded credit to independent
private enterprises during Dr. Yunus's tenure. The report raised specific questions relating
to a) establishment and financing of GrameenPhone, a for-profit telecommunications
entity initially established as a trust for the Grameen Bank borrowers together with
Norwegian government owned multinational Telenor by Dr Yunus, and b) simultaneous
management and operational financing of private enterprises established by Dr Yunus
applying resources of the Grameen Bank. The commission also examined the legal status
of the Grameen Bank and concluded that it was de jure public i.e. government entity, of
which incompetent oversight by the state and (potentially unwitting) misrepresentation by
Dr. Yunus in past resulted in the popular perception of the private ownership. The
commission report refers to obstruction of commission investigations by current Grameen
Bank management, representatives of Telenor, the Government of Bangladesh, and by
partisans of Dr. Yunus. Full implications of the report are thus far not closely examined in
either state-controlled elements of Bangladeshi media, or by pro-Yunus press releases,
where these implicate Dr Yunus as at least accessory to corruption at the nexus of the
Bangladeshi public-commercial establishment, in collusion with other parties.

Criticism of ideas

Microfinance has been criticized in the foreign media. The Guardian (UK) asked whether
microfinance was a 'neoliberal fairytale'. The article pointed out criticisms including that

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most loans are not used to create small businesses, but instead 'consumption smoothing'.
Muhammad Yunus is widely perceived to be the founder of microcredit, though similar
schemes had been operating for centuries. His idea of forming self-help groups among
women borrowers was preceded by schemes set up by Khushi Kabir at BRAC.

Personal life

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, US. They were married in 1970. Yunus's marriage with Vera ended
within months of the birth of their baby girl, Monica Yunus (born 1979 Chittagong), as
Vera returned to New Jersey claiming that Bangladesh was not a good place to raise a
baby. Yunus later married Afrozi Yunus, who was then a researcher in physics at
Manchester University. She was later appointed as a professor of physics at
Jahangirnagar University. Their daughter Deena Afroz Yunus was born in 1986.

Yunus's 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. His younger brother Muhammad Jahangir is a popular television presenter and a
well known social activist in Bangladesh. He is also the moderator of several Talk show
programmes in Bangladesh. Monica Yunus, his elder daughter, is a Bangladeshi-Russian
American operatic soprano, working in New York City.

Yunus Centre

The Yunus Centre, in Dhaka, Bangladesh, is a think tank for issues related to social
business, working in the field of poverty alleviation and sustainability. It is 'aimed
primarily at promoting and disseminating Professor Yunus' philosophy, with a special
focus on social business' and currently chaired by Prof. Muhammad Yunus.

Publications

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  Yunus, Muhammad (1974). Three Farmers of Jobra. Department of Economics,
Chittagong University.
 —— (1976). Planning in Bangladesh: Format, Technique, and Priority, and
Other Essays; Rural Studies Project, Department of Economics. Chittagong
University.
 ——; Isalama, Saiyada Manajurula; Rahman, Arifa (1991). Jorimon and Others:
Faces of Poverty. Grameen Bank.
 —— (1994). Grameen Bank, as I See it. Grameen Bank.
 —— (1999). Banker to the Poor: Micro-Lending and the Battle Against World
Poverty. New York: PublicAffairs. ISBN 978-1-58648-198-8.
 —— (2007). Creating a World without Poverty: Social Business and the Future of
Capitalism. New York: PublicAffairs. ISBN 978-1-58648-493-4.
 —— (2010). Building Social Business: The New Kind of Capitalism that Serves
Humanity's Most Pressing Needs. New York: Public Affairs. ISBN 978-1-58648-
824-6.
 Yunus, Muhammad, Moingeon, Bertrand and Laurence Lehmann-Ortega (2010),
"Building Social Business Models: Lessons from the Grameen Experience",
April-June, vol 43, number 2–3, Long Range Planning, pp. 308–325

Legacy and honours

 In 2006, awarded Nobel Peace Prize for his finance work.

 Chosen by Wharton School of Business in Philadelphia as one of The 25 Most
Influential Business Persons of the Past 25 Years, covered in a PBS documentary.
 In 2006, Time magazine ranked him as one of the top 12 business leaders,
including him among "60 years of Asian Heroes."
 In 2008, Yunus was voted 2nd on the list of Top 100 Public Intellectuals in an
open online poll conducted by Prospect Magazine (UK) and Foreign Policy
(United States).
 In 2009, Yunus was awarded the Golden Biatec Award, the highest award
bestowed by Slovakia's Informal Economic Forum Economic Club, for

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individuals who exhibit economic, social, scientific, educational and cultural
accomplishments in the Slovak Republic.

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Conclusions and Recommendations :

1. According to the article 152 of the Constitution of the People’s Republic of

Bangladesh, Grameen Bank is a Statutory Public Authority, since it was
established in 1983 under an Ordinance. It is neither a NGO nor a bank /a bank
company / a scheduled bank in traditional term. Although its micro credit
activities are similar to that of an NGO, government possesses 25% ownership of
that institution by law. But government didn’t take that opportunity and it owns
only 3.29% of the ownership. Thus, government must have to set it right in terms
of ownership.
2. Government didn’t take any effective initiative over a period of twelve years to
rectify irregularities such as- the continuation as Managing Director by Dr.
Mohammed Yunus after end of his tenure mentioned in the inspection report on
GB by Bangladesh Bank submitted in 1999. It is needless to mention that present
situation would not arise if timely initiatives were taken. It is a matter of
investigation to identify the social, economic or political reasons behind inaction
of the government.
3. Due to the expansion of micro credit program and other activities, Grameen Bank
has become a large institution. But the tendency of violation of rules and
regulations has been observed in almost all operations such as administrative
decision, purchasing activities, the role of directors in the Board of Directors,
establishment of company/institutions outside of Grameen Bank, use of fund,
intercom any fund transfer etc. In fact, it has grown up as a person oriented 43
institution instead of a system oriented one. In these circumstances, at first a
national policy has to be formulated to make the activities and poverty eradicating
efforts of Grameen Bank effective where ensuring recovery of the collateral free
loan disbursed to the landless poor in rural areas. The governance of micro credit,
Grameen Bank and its associate institutions should be emphasized in formulating
such policy. These policies have to be compiled in order to amend the necessary
regulatory structure.

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4. At the next stage, ‘Grameen Bank Reformation Commission’ has to be formed
and a new act has to be drafted by the experts. According to the decision of the
committee, following steps should be considered:
5. A regulatory authority is a must for any credit providing organization. It will
ensure the proper use of assets and good governance. Even though Grameen Bank
is a microcredit institution, according to Microcredit Regulatory Authority Act
2006, it is not a micro credit institution. As a result, Grameen Bank doesn’t come
under the control of Microcredit Regulatory Authority (MRA). Microcredit
Regulatory Authority (MRA) was established according to the Microcredit
Regulatory Authority Act 2006 to supervise and control the activities of the
microcredit institutions in the country. Since the main objective of establishing
GB according to the Grameen Bank Ordinance 1983, is to extend credit to the
rural landless people, it should be placed under the control of Microcredit
Regulatory Authority. Necessary amendment of Grameen Bank Ordinance 1983
and MRA Act

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References

 "List of Independence Awardees". Cabinet Division, Government of People's Republic

of Bangladesh (in Bengali). Retrieved 29 November 2012.
 "The Nobel Peace Prize for 2006". NobelPrize.org. 13 October 2006. Retrieved 13
October 2006.
 "House and Senate Leaders Announce Gold Medal Ceremony for Professor
Muhammad Yunus", Press Release, US Congress
 FP Top 100 Global Thinkers
 "Muhammad Yunus accepts Glasgow Caledonian University post". BBC News. 1 July
2012.
 "Muhammad Yunus Chancellor of Glasgow Caledonian University". UK Parliament.
16 July 2012.
 United Nations Foundation, additional text.
 Polgreen, Lydia; Bajaj, Vikas (2 March 2011). "Microcredit Pioneer Ousted, Head of
Bangladeshi Bank Says". The New York Times.
 "About Dr. Yunus: Family". MuhammadYunus.ORG. Archived from the original on 16
April 2008. Retrieved 14 May 2008.
 "First loan he gave was $27 from own pocket". The Daily Star. 14 October 2006.
Retrieved 22 August 2007.
 Mhammad Yunus: The triumph of idealism, New Age Special, The New Age, 1
January 2007; Retrieved: 11 September 2007
 Yunus to receive Nichols-Chancellor's Medal, Vanderbilt News, 12 March 2007;
Retrieved: 9 September 2007
 Yunus, Muhammad; Jolis, Alan. Banker to the Poor: micro-lending and the battle
against world poverty. New York: PublicAffairs hc. pp. 20–29. ISBN 978-1-58648-198-8.
 "Yunus, Muhammad - Citation". Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation. Retrieved 17
August 2007.

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