KOMMENTAR
The rise and fall of the godfather of microfinance
Af Lamia Karim
amerikansk forsker, opr. bragt i avisen “New Age” i Bangladesh
The removal of Muhammad Yunus, the Nobel laureate and the darling of the international development set, and the weakening of the Grameen Bank, would give competitor NGOs an advantage to recruit ‘credit-worthy’ members, and to create more power and resources for themselves.
It is this toxic brew of power and envy that has embroiled Nobel laureate Yunus in a legal dispute with the current government. In the western fetishisation of this iconic individual, the real issue – the ever-deepening debt crisis for poor women – is forgotten.
The rise and fall of Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus is a tragedy of Shakespearean proportions. In the Bengali culture of irsha (envy), it was only a matter of time before the ire (vrede) of the prime minister would fall on the Nobel laureate.
After all, Professor Yunus, the darling of the international development set of multinational aid organisations, heads of states, CEOs, philanthropists, went to places that no Bangladeshi had gone before – Oslo for a Nobel, Davos, meetings with state leaders, and his personal friendship with the Clintons.
He is the most celebrated Bangladeshi who has brought fame and recognition to this fabled land of floods. He is also a global leader of the microfinance movement, and his removal may send shudders throughout the industry, especially in Bangladesh.
His contributions are many, and they should be recognised. While I find the forced removal of Professor Yunus disgraceful, to say the least, I want to pose some questions from a different angle.
In the past few months, there has been a flurry of news reports on the negative consequences of microfinance in South Asia.
The Grameen Bank, the paradigmatic institution of microfinance, and its charismatic founder, Professor Yunus, have been in the midst of this furore. The bank and its founder are winners of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize.
On March 2, 2011, the Bangladesh Bank sacked Nobel laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus as the managing director of the Grameen Bank. The bank is owned 25 per cent by the government of Bangladesh. Despite that, the Grameen Bank has always operated as an independent entity.
According to a parliamentary watchdog committee, the bank does not follow the 2006 Microcredit Regulatory Act (bdnews24.com). That is to say, there are countless differences in how the Grameen Bank is operationally distinct from government banks, and of its autonomy.
The unravelling of Professor Yunus began with the airing of Caught in Debt (Fanget i Mikrogæld), a co-produced Danish-Norwegian documentary in november 2010.
The documentary showed that in 1996 Yunus transferred 100 million US dollar (ca. 520 mio. DKR) meant for Grameen borrowers to one of the bank’s subsidiary companies, Grameen Kalyan, without knowledge of the Norwegian donors. While the Norwegians now claim that there was no wrongdoing on his part, the Bangladesh government began an investigation.
At present, there are three cases pending against Professor Yunus and the Grameen Bank for fiscal and other irregularities that are considered by many as largely frivolous (betydningsløse).
Læs videre på http://newagebd.com/newspaper1/op-ed/12659.html
Begynd fra “The online news agency…”
Lamia Karim har netop udgivet en bog om effekter af mikrolån blandt kvinder i Bangladesh og konkluderer, at de er svære at få øje på.
