INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
of pressure from the Bangladeshi government for his work, which is credited with improving the lives of millions of poor people,
Grameen Telecom, the not-for-profit company he founded in 1983
It allows them to take out small loans to invest in building their own businesses
Piloted in 1976 among a group of women in a Bangladeshi village who were given small loans without needing collateral, by the mid-2000s it
was seen as a key tool for ending poverty
Yunus and the Grameen Bank won the Nobel peace prize for the work in 2006.View image in fullscreenFatema (right) started her successful
business in Dhaluarchar, Bangladesh, in 1998, with a loan from Grameen Bank
She sells mobile phones to rural women to provide them with a business opportunity and link them to the wider world
questioned and microfinance has been the subject of several scandals over lenders charging exploitative interest rates.In 2011, Yunus was
forced to resign from Grameen after a campaign led by Bangladeshi politicians
Yunus, who was 70 at the time, was deemed too old to run the bank
He maintains the mandatory retirement age of 60 should not have applied to him as the bank was not a government institution.The Bangladeshi
government has defended the action against Yunus, and denies that it represents a misuse of the legal system, accusing the economist of
calling for the labour law charges to be suspended
2012 over allegations of corruption by Bangladeshi officials
others to his aborted attempt to launch a political party in 2007.Despite the threat of imprisonment, the 83-year-old has remained in
Bangladesh and is still working to eliminate poverty and unemployment.He said other countries had offered to host him but he did not want to
leave behind his work or his employees
Photograph: Sarah Lee/The GuardianYunus is still committed to microfinance
He believes any problems are due to a lack of regulation that has allowed unscrupulous dealers to operate.When done right, he said, the
system could give poor people the freedom to improve their lives by building businesses instead of having to subsist on low-paying
not what human beings are all about
Human beings are not built for serving somebody else
If you connect finance with people, people suddenly become very active, become alive, his mind starts ticking, he starts creating things
This article first appeared/also appeared in theguardian.com
