The Time to Defend Grameen Bank is Now

Todd Bernhardt is Director of Marketing and Communications at Grameen Foundation.

As you might have read in the news this week, the Bangladeshi government seems to be moving into the end game in its longtime effort to take over Grameen Bank, a move that has been widely criticized within Bangladesh and around the world.  To briefly summarize, the cabinet – presided over by Prime Minister Sheik Hasina – voted on Thursday to amend the Grameen Bank Ordinance of 1983, effectively removing the Board of Directors’ right to choose the Bank’s Managing Director, and vesting that power instead in the Board’s government-appointed (and aligned) chairman.

As troubling as that disenfranchisement of the Bank’s 8.3 million borrower-owners is (more than 8 million of these owners are poor women), equally troubling is a directive from the cabinet to the Finance Ministry to examine and report on the salaries and benefits that Grameen Bank founder Professor Muhammad Yunus received after he turned 60, which is the official age of retirement from the Bank. It also asked the Ministry to examine whether he earned foreign currency that was tax-exempt during his time as Managing Director.

(Prof. Yunus, who is 72 and going stronger than ever, was exempted from the retirement age by the Grameen Bank Board, whose decision was reviewed and accepted by the government for more than a decade before it suddenly decided that he was too old for the job; the post of Deputy Managing Director was also exempted. For more information on the government’s 21-month campaign against Prof. Yunus and the Bank, see this Fact Sheet developed by the Friends of Grameen organization. Grameen Foundation President and CEO Alex Counts also recently blogged about this issue.)

The women on Grameen Bank’s Board of Directors, who represent the Bank’s 8.3 million borrower-owners and are shown here with Prof. Yunus at the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony, are in danger of losing their ability to choose the Bank’s Managing Director.

Let’s look at the second part of the cabinet’s actions first.  The idea that Prof. Yunus would benefit financially from any of his activities advocating for the poor is patently absurd.  Throughout his career, he has had multiple opportunities to join corporate boards as a paid advisor or even to lead for-profit organizations, for great personal gain – yet he has declined.  He has consistently donated whatever money he has earned as a public speaker to social businesses dedicated to serving the poor or to other charitable causes – including Grameen Foundation, which began with $6,000 that he earned from one such speaking engagement.  He lives in a small apartment on the Grameen Bank campus.  All of his activities – either as leader of Grameen Bank or as leader of the Yunus Centre, which focuses on fostering social businesses – have been other-focused, rather than focused on personal gain.

As for the government’s moves to give the Bank’s chairman almost unlimited power to choose a new Managing Director and to sideline the poor women who own this successful, innovative, Nobel Prize-winning microfinance institution – well, to many, it smacks of pure desperation, and an attempt to shift public attention away from a number of public policy failures.  The government of Sheikh Hasina is facing a host of challenges and embarrassments at home, including the recent cancellation by the World Bank of a loan to fund the $1.2 billion Padma Bridge project – a huge infrastructure initiative that was going to be a hallmark of her administration – because of corruption within the government and contractors involved.  She herself has become more autocratic and combative, as noted by The Economist in several articles, and as demonstrated by a recent appearance on the BBC’s “Hard Talk” interview show, where – among other things – she argued with the presenter about accusing Prof. Yunus of “sucking blood from the poor in the name of poverty alleviation” (a well-documented quote from her referring to him) and misrepresented Grameen Bank’s interest rates, saying that it charges between 30 and 45%, when her own administration has confirmed studies showing that the Bank’s highest charge is roughly 20%, seven points below the maximum rate set by the government.

Professor Yunus, who was a surprised and disappointed as the rest of us by the cabinet decisions and directives, released the following statement on Friday:

I was very apprehensive about it for some time. Now my fear is becoming a reality. I am disappointed that we were not successful in stopping this process. It  makes me immensely sad to see the poor women being deprived of their rightful ownership and their rights as owners to exercise their power over the bank. I am so shocked by the turn of events that I am left without words. I request my fellow citizens who are as shocked as I am, to try to  persuade our government to realise that this is a very wrong step they are taking; they should refrain from proceeding with this. The decision of the government would destroy this well known bank for the poor, the bank that has made the country proud.  I urge our fellow countrymen to come forward and save this successful national enterprise owned by the poor women. I am also urging the poor owners of Grameen Bank to appeal to the government and the citizens  to come forward to help them safeguard  their rightful ownership of the Bank.

What can non-Bangladeshis do about these injustices?  You can take action by speaking up – Grameen Foundation has a petition that we plan to give soon to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, asking her to reiterate the U.S. government’s strong support for the continued independence of Grameen Bank and the rights of the poor women who own it.  Microcredit Summit has its own petition on Change.org, also in support of the continued independence of the Bank, that it plans to give to Sheikh Hasina.  Please sign both petitions, and urge your friends, family and those on your social networks to do the same.

We would also ask that you contact your legislative representatives, and the media, no matter where you live, and let them know how important it is to you that the world’s flagship microfinance institution remain independent and able to continue its effective, innovative role in the ongoing battle against poverty. Time is short. The Bangladeshi government’s commission reviewing the Bank and the other Grameen social businesses is moving ahead quickly, and new actions against the Bank may be announced soon, so it’s essential that you act now to defend the rights of – and opportunities for – the world’s poorest.

In the meantime, we will keep you informed about developments as they occur.  Of course, with your support, we will continue our work around the world to provide the poor with access to appropriate financial services like microsavings and loans, as well as access to life-changing, real-time information about their health, crops, animals and finances. Working together, in the spirit of innovators like Grameen Bank, we can begin to realize Prof. Yunus’s vision of putting poverty where it belongs – in a museum.

Growth for All: Including the Poor in Strategies for Economic Growth

Michael Castellano is a graduate student at The George Washington University, studying International Affairs and Development. He interned with Bankers without Borders^® at Grameen Foundation during the spring of 2012.

In the years following the global financial crisis, politicians and policymakers across the globe have harped on one cardinal goal: economic growth. Without a doubt, plans for growing the economy will dominate discussions in the upcoming U.S. presidential election. It seems as though we as a society have collectively determined that if only the economy would turn around, conditions would certainly improve across the board. If only we could enact legislation to spur economic growth, inevitably we would all be better off.

Fortunately, statistics show that the United States has seen steadily climbing annual growth rates since the nadir of the “Great Recession.” Developing countries and emerging economies have, on the whole, experienced average growth rates of more than 5 percent thus far in 2012 and will continue to propel the world’s progress, according to financial forecasts. So – this is good news for everyone, right?

Not necessarily.

Although a country’s national economy may grow, the poorest of the poor often remain completely disconnected from the financial, political and social systems in place. Without active bank accounts, the poor cannot easily save or access other financial services. In rural villages, people may not have easy access to healthcare and can quickly fall victim to external shocks such as disease or natural disaster. Without these services, poor people around the world cannot reap the benefits of overall economic growth.

During my time at Grameen Foundation and through my studies in International Development during this past year, one fundamental lesson has stood out: Though economic growth is certainly important, growth does little to reduce poverty if the poor lack access to essential services. This illustrates a key principle that development practitioners dub “pro-poor growth.”

Michael Castellano, shown here during a trip to Australia, served as an intern at Grameen Foundation this spring.

Pro-poor growth involves forming development policies and strategies that target the poorest of the poor and offer new ways of connecting them to financial markets. Professor Muhammad Yunus, Nobel Prize laureate and founder of Grameen Bank, stated, “The direct elimination of poverty should be the objective of all development aid. Development should be viewed as a human rights issue, not as a question of simply increasing the gross national product.”

The Power of Microbusiness

Shannon Maynard is the Director of Grameen Foundation’s skilled volunteer program, Bankers without Borders^®. Maynard has more than 15 years of experience in nonprofit management and volunteer mobilization. Before joining Grameen Foundation, she served as Executive Director of the President’s Council on Service and Civic Participation, and managed strategic initiatives for federal agency the Corporation for National and Community Service.

One of the books that has been on my reading list for a while but I haven’t gotten to yet is The Coming Jobs War, by Gallup CEO Jim Clifton.  As a busy working mom, I’ve read reviews and excerpts, and have promised myself to read the entire book by the end of the summer.  I do know that the premise of the book, which is based on the findings of Gallup’s World Poll, is that what people in the world want most is a good job.

Here in the United States that typically translates to a formal job and steady paycheck. In the developing world that includes informal jobs, but the message is the same – people want steady, reliable pay in return for a hard day’s work.  Clifton argues that over the course of the next 30 years, economic force will trump political and military force in terms of determining which countries have power and influence and which do not.  The top U.S. cabinet position will be the Secretary of Job Creation – not the Secretary of State or Defense.

Shannon Maynard, Director, Grameen Foundation's Bankers without Borders volunteer initiative.

At Grameen Foundation, we focus our time on creating ways to give the poorest people, in some of the world’s poorest countries, access to information and financial services that will help them improve their livelihoods, most often through the creation of informal jobs.  In the United States, there is a similar effort afoot to provide greater access to financing and technical assistance to help microbusinesses – those businesses with between one and five employees – grow and create more jobs.  The Association for Enterprise Opportunity (AEO), the voice of microenterprise development in the United States, argues that if just one-third of these microbusinesses were able to hire one new employee, the United States would be at full employment.

Helping the Poorest Access Resources, Training, Financial Services

Luckshmi Sivalingam, Program Officer for Grameen Foundation’s Solutions for the Poorest program, oversees the Livelihood Pathways for the Poorest (LPP) project in India.

One week last August, after slogging barefoot through a kilometer of muddy fields and monsoon rains, my colleagues from The Livelihood School at BASIX India and I reached our first ASHG (adapted self-help group) meeting of the week. We were greeted with warm smiles from the female members of one of the strongest ASHGs developed through the Livelihood Pathways for the Poorest (LPP) project in Bihar, India, to date. Trust levels and self-confidence are slowly building, as are savings habits among our members. Our project has two main goals: identifying and building a diverse and stable group of livelihood activities that will generate increased income throughout the year, and providing immediate and long-term socio-economic support for the group members and their families.

We have been working with the local government since May to link poor households to various support programs, including child and women’s healthcare and work for unskilled laborers. (The 2005 Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Act guarantees 100 days of wage labor for adults in rural communities who are willing to do unskilled manual work or the equivalent in wages.)  Though the households in our project were eligible to receive these government programs, they either didn’t have the required proof of identification (India is one year into a national ID campaign that many hope will alleviate this problem) or were not aware of them. With our help, they now appreciate the immediate, tangible benefits of engaging in the government programs, as they begin to gradually access and experience the much-needed services that are rightfully theirs. Since we began our discussions with the local government, our target villages have been assessed to see which eligible households lack job cards; the ones that do are currently being processed. In addition, the households will each receive one to two fruit saplings for planting next month.

Participants in one of the LPP project's Adapted Self-Help Groups, or ASHGs, discuss the importance of savings.

Understanding our clients’ thinking and the conditioning caused by a lifetime of chronic poverty is one of the most challenging aspects of this work. Our ready access in the developed world to the conveniences of modern life can limit our ability as practitioners to relate to and understand the very different reality of the poor we are seeking to help – a reality that can be a painful one. Living and interacting with them provides us with a window into the challenges of their daily lives, and shapes our own understanding of their needs and the context in which they live. It also helps us to understand the rationale behind the difficult daily decisions they must make – how to feed themselves and their families, what they must forego for the survival of their children and what sacrifices must be borne by the entire household, regardless of age. Designing a methodology, products and services to create “livelihood pathways for the poorest” will be a process of testing and retesting these next two years.

 

New Blog — and Book — on Microfinance in Haiti, by Alex Counts

Grameen Foundation founder, President and CEO Alex Counts is in the beginning phase of working on a new book on microfinance in Haiti, focusing in particular on the country’s best-known microfinance institution, Fonkoze.

Alex is in Haiti now, conducting research and working closely with Fonkoze staff and meeting with borrowers to find out more about what’s working, what’s not, and the organization’s overall impact on the poor. You can follow along with Alex’s progress at his blog, where he is posting updates on his activities, including videos and drafts from his book.  As Alex says, “I hope lots of people will take interest in this project, check out the postings and comment on them, so I can improve my thinking and writing, and even repost/circulate what I post to draw in others.”

Alex Counts (right) with Fonkoze borrowers in Haiti.

All proceeds from the book, which Alex expects to publish in early 2013, will benefit Grameen Foundation and our efforts to empower the poor through access to small loans, valuable information and unique business opportunities.  Alex has also set up a Facebook page for the book, which we encourage you to “like” and follow!

Statement of Prof. Yunus Regarding His Removal from Grameen Bank

Statement of Nobel Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus on the Occasion of Supreme Court Verdict on May 5, 2011 Regarding His Removal from Grameen Bank.  Professor Yunus voiced his concern after revelations surfaced surrounding violence against employee leaders of the Bank.  Those interested may also want to read in the Bank’s point-by-point refutation of the allegations brought up in the government’s Review Committee report, as well as by the nation’s government-aligned media.

You have already heard the verdict from the Supreme Court.

Why did I appear before the Court? Why did I want to contest the order of Bangladesh Bank? Why there is so much concern about this issue at home and abroad? There may be some confusion regarding these questions. Please allow me to share my feelings with you to remove this confusion. I went to the Court for a specific reason. Bangladesh Bank sent a letter to Grameen Bank, removing me from my post as Managing Director of Grameen Bank. The letter also mentioned that I held this position for the last eleven years illegally. Bangladesh Bank did this without giving me a chance to explain my position. I felt that this letter was not legally correct, and through this letter, not only was I been wronged, but so was Grameen Bank. Nine elected members of the Board of Directors of Grameen Bank felt the same way. That is why the nine members of the Board and I filed separate writs in the High Court. We wanted these wrongs to be corrected. Therefore, we had to seek justice through all avenues offered in the Bangladeshi judicial system. This is what we have done.

The fate of 40 million poor people connected to this
In the event that the Honorable Court stated in their final decision that the letter from Bangladesh Bank was issued without lawful authority, I could continue my work with Grameen Bank and make the transition to a capable management as smoothly as possible. But, if the Court verdict went against us, the Board may be forced to take steps to implement the content of the Bangladesh Bank letter. This was the only reason for me to take this matter to the Court. I had no option but to seek justice in this matter.

It is indeed a much wider and much more significant issue to save the future of Grameen Bank and also to protect the hopes and dreams of the over 8 million borrowers. These borrowers are also the owners of 96.5% of the Bank’s shares. The Bank is connected with 40 million microcredit borrowers in Bangladesh, and its impact on all these people cannot be neglected. What happens to Grameen Bank influences the future of the millions of Bangladeshis who benefit from microcredit activities, as well as the future of the institution of microcredit itself. It is actually a great concern for me, and many others, that I properly fulfill my responsibility to safeguard their future before and after leaving the post of Managing Director of Grameen Bank.

Some have said that, instead of going to the court, it would have been more honorable for me to resign from my position as suggested by the Finance Minister. I do not think so. In that case, the end result would have been the same, so far as my exit is concerned. But I would have suffered from carrying the guilt of knowingly accepting an unexpected proposal and putting the borrowers and their families’ futures at risk. I could not do that.

Millions of borrowers like the ones seen meeting above could be adversely affected by a government takeover of Grameen Bank.

Some people felt that I intend to cling to the position of Managing Director of Grameen Bank. But, the nation knows that this position is not my life’s goal. I was, and am, conscious of the fact that my future work will not be based on my holding on to this position, but rather, it would be working with the young generation, from other platforms to address the problem of poverty at home and abroad. I want to do that without jeopardizing the interests of Grameen Bank. This is the thought which prompted me to write the letter to the Honorable Finance Minister one year ago. I suggested two options to him for a transition that could take place without creating any waves within the Bank.  I did not get any response to these proposals.  I was, instead, told to quit. It is, therefore, unfair to me to suggest that I am holding on to the of position of managing director unjustly or to allege  that I am not co-operating in the process of transition.

For the last few months, a section of the media devoted itself fiercely to campaign against me, Grameen Bank, and the concept of microcredit. Everyone has his own explanation why this is happening.

An unfriendly atmosphere is not helpful for a smooth change of leadership
The cause of my concerns, as well as those of the nation and the world, lies here. These concerns are more for Grameen Bank and the future of its millions of borrowers, than for me. For this reason, I have been reminding you repeatedly that undertaking the transition process of Grameen Bank’s management in an unfriendly environment will only cause harm to the future of the Bank. I have always wanted to make sure that the transition takes place in a friendly, mutually supportive environment, so that the achievements of Grameen Bank may continue without interruption. There are many issues related to this. The big questions are: whether Grameen Bank can maintain its independent existence, and whether it can be successful in keeping itself away from political influences. What actually happens to financial institutions in our country if political influences start playing a role in these institutions is common knowledge. This experience will not inspire trust in the borrowers.  We all know how important the role of trust is in the operation of Grameen Bank.

From Bottom Billion to Next Billion

Luckshmi Sivalingam is a Program Officer for Grameen Foundation’s Solutions for the Poorest program.

Before joining GF, I interviewed fifty clients of a Nepal savings and credit cooperative as part of an impact assessment. I saw that particularly for those living in extreme poverty, the solution to changing their situations can’t be limited to providing access to microfinance’s traditional product: an enterprise loan.

THP client on her new farm in West Bengal

Nearly all the clients I spoke with said that if they’d undergone appropriate skills development or received training on value addition for the goods and services they were selling, then their microenterprises could have generated the additional income required for them to progress out of poverty.

Witnessing Our Impact in Nairobi, Kenya

Sandra Adams is Grameen Foundation’s Vice President of External Affairs.

During the first week of April several Grameen Foundation board members, other staff and I traveled to Kiambu, Kenya—about 45 minutes outside Nairobi—to see how local organizations are making a difference in the lives of poor families. Staff at the microfinance institution Kenya Entrepreneurship Empowerment Foundation (KEEF) and some of the MFIs ambitious borrowers welcomed us and shared their triumphs and challenges in the fight against poverty in their communities.

Upon arrival, we had the pleasure of meeting the “Bright Vision” borrower’s circle. What a perfect name for a group on their way up out of poverty! They told us that they began as a small, informal borrowers circle (called a “merry-go-round” in Kenya) that provided loans and a place to put savings.

Rose, right, with Bright Vision’s treasurer Elizabeth

The group then decided to join KEEF because they felt they could trust the MFI with their money. They can drop by the KEEF office anytime and staff there will show them their records.

In the past year, Bright Vision has grown from 11 to 22 members. Their loans have funded a variety of businesses: a day care, a pub, a fruit and vegetable stand, a couple of cows, supplies for a storefront chemist’s shop, a breakfast porridge stand, and others.

I was really impressed with KEEF’s loan officer Rosaline “Rose” Myra who services 35 groups. Rose is on the road constantly, usually traveling from group to group by matatu (the informal van service that links towns together). She loves Mifos because she no longer has to keep track of hundreds of loans on ledger sheets—the pre-printed loan/savings forms save her 30 minutes of work per group!

After saying goodbye to Rose and Bright Vision, we were off to visit borrowers Lucy and her niece, Teresia.  Lucy’s home is a two-room wooden building with cement floors, a screened porch for cooking, and a yard for her goats and chickens. She is Member #1 of her group, “Manchester Banana”— “Manchester” after a popular sports team and “Banana” for the name of her town. Lucy bought goats with her first loan of 15,000 shillings (about $200), and she sells their milk, and sometimes their kids, for traditional Easter dinners. With her first profits, she bought chickens and sells their eggs. She was proud to show us the corn crib on stilts that houses the maize she also sells.

Children in the neighborhood: the Obama hat made me feel right at home!

A huge proponent of microfinance, Lucy recruited almost all of the 28 women in her group! “I was really poor and I want to help other women so they can get out of their houses and so they don’t have to try to make a living being farmhands,” she told us. She helps new group members figure out good businesses to start.  Lucy suggested Teresia begin selling detergent door-to-door because people can only afford to buy a small amount at a time. Teresia makes a profit of about $63 for each enormous pail she sells. Her goal is to bank some savings and start a small curio shop selling crafts from Uganda, her home country. Lucy has a big dream, too.  She wants to buy the land next to her house and, with the help of her three sons, build 10 one-room houses to rent out for guaranteed income. I’m positive that with the work ethic and determination these women share, their dreams will come true in no time!

SEAMO holds benefit for Fonkoze

Charlene Balick is a Technical Program Officer for Grameen Foundation based in Seattle, Washington.  She has spent considerable time in Haiti working with Fonkoze.

On Thursday, 27 January, my co-worker in the Grameen Technology Center, Scott Everett , organized with some other members of SEAMO (Seattle Microfinance Organization) a benefit to raise funds for Fonkoze.  The event was promoted by other Seattle organizations including Seattle Greendrinks, Re-Vision Labs and Seattle Works.   I was thrilled to have a chance to be a part of the lineup and share stories and photos of clients I had taken during visits to Fonkoze over the past year and half.

GF & Fonkoze Relief Efforts in Haiti featured in Huffington Post

Fonkoze client with her child in Haiti

The Huffington Post’s Vivian Norris de Montaigu recaps on a Haiti-filled day in Paris, including learning about Grameen Foundation Fonkoze client with her child in Haiti and Fonkoze’s unique recovery and relief efforts in Haiti.

The full story is available here.