For his outstanding work helping millions of people break out of the cycle of poverty, Dr. Muhammad Yunus has been given an honorary degree as Doctor of Laws by the University of British Columbia.
Founder and managing director of the Grameen Bank, Yunus had initially accepted the honorary degree in 2006. But after he and the Grameen Bank were announced co-winners of the Nobel Peace the same year, the ceremony was postponed.
"What an honour for me and the people who worked very hard to make a dream come true," said Yunus, who received the award at a ceremony at the Chan Centre for Performing Arts in Vancouver last Friday. Yunus is a leader in the field of microcredit, an innovative program aimed at providing small loans to entrepreneurs too poor to qualify for traditional bank loans.
In his acceptance speech, Yunus said that "by extending credit to the poor, you can unlock the entrepreneurial spirit in people and let them break the cycle of poverty on their own"
Founded in Bangladesh in 1983, the Grameen (which means "village" in Bangla) Bank has extended credit to 7.44 million borrowers through 2,488 branches which provide service in more than 96 per cent Bangladesh's villages.
The bank was founded on the principle of "credit as a human right." Its borrowers buy into four core values: discipline, unity, courage, and hard work. Ninety per cent of the shares are owned by the borrowers and the remainder by the government. The loans are made without any collateral.
A previous head of the Rural Economics Program at the University of Chittagong in Bangladesh, Yunus quit his academic life after the devastating1974 famine.
"I was feeling totally useless teaching elegant and beautiful economics when people were dying outside next to me, so I stepped away to see if there was anything I could do to solve the problem," he said.
By lending $27 to 42 villagers, he realized that a tiny amount of credit could help people and save them the humiliation of trying to borrow from traditional banks. This created momentum for his vision: "If you can make so many people happy with so little, why not do more?"
With a keen sense of humour and humility to match, Yunus explained that he built the Grameen Bank by "simply" doing the opposite of what other banks do. "I looked at the conventional banks and what they do, I do the opposite"
About 97 per cent of Grameen borrowers are women with a repayment rate of 99 per cent. When asked why the bank focuses on women, Yunus replied, "Have you asked any other banks why so many men?"
"Today, [women] created their own world, changing their lives, sending their children to school…. They demonstrated they have the ability to change their lives."
He also commented on the challenge of accomplishing this in a male dominated culture, noting that diplomacy is essential in preserving the marriage and, when successful, can create a partnership between the husband and wife to work together.
Regular banks reject two thirds of the world population, something Yunus calls "conventional stupidity."
The ceremony transitioned into a colloqium on Corporate Social Responsibility which included among others Yunus, UBC president Stephen Toope and Vancity Board of Directors Chair Patrice Pratt.
In 1998, Vancity implemented the peer lending program, inspired by Yunus's lending circle and which he later endorsed. Since then, Vancity's peer lending program has helped more than 1,000 low-income entrepreneurs.
"We have to look differently at the way we provide service" said Pratt.
Yunus commented on the business world's corporate leanings, or what he calls "machines" in the pursuit of "pure profit;" he stressed the idea of "social business" instead.
He said human beings are not money making machines, but multi-dimensional entities in the pursuit of good for themselves and others.
In 1989, Yunus founded Grameen Trust, a non-profit NGO to help replicate his microcredit program abroad through a Grameen Bank Replication Program (GBRP).
To date, the GBRP has supported 138 replication partners in 37 countries. "The goal is to create a self-sustaining micro-credit program" said Yunus.
In 2007, Grameen America, mainly owned by Grameen Trust, was established in New York City to serve poor aspiring entrepreneurs in the U.S. through small, low-interest loans, basic banking services, savings options and financial education.
As for the future, Yunus hopes to keep enabling change, and passing on his message that "there is no reason someone on this planet should be poor" which he discusses in his latest book Creating a World Without Poverty .
Yunus received his degree as part of UBC's Centenary celebrations. He also participated in a Vancity hosted microcredit workshop and launched his Inaugural Michael Smith Memorial Nobel Lecture Series. In 2007, Yunus was named one of the 30 greatest entrepreneurs of all time.
Other UBC honorary degree recipients include The Dalai Lama, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Iranian lawyer and human rights activist Shirin Ebadi.
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