Banker To The Poor: Micro-Lending and the Battle Against World Poverty

商家名称	信用等级	购买信息	订购本书
		Banker To The Poor: Micro-Lending and the Battle Against World Poverty
		Banker To The Poor: Micro-Lending and the Battle Against World Poverty

基本信息·出版社：PublicAffairs
·页码：312 页
·出版日期：2003年10月
·ISBN：1586481983
·条形码：9781586481988
·版本：Rev. and Updated for the Pbk. Ed
·装帧：平装
·正文语种：英语
·外文书名：穆罕默德·尤努斯: 穷人的银行家

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Muhammad Yunus is that rare thing: a bona fide visionary. His dream is the total eradication of poverty from the world. In 1983, against the advice of banking and government officials, Yunus established Grameen, a bank devoted to providing the poorest of Bangladesh with minuscule loans. Grameen Bank, based on the belief that credit is a basic human right, not the privilege of a fortunate few, now provides over 2.5 billion dollars of micro-loans to more than two million families in rural Bangladesh. Ninety-four percent of Yunus's clients are women, and repayment rates are near 100 percent. Around the world, micro-lending programs inspired by Grameen are blossoming, with more than three hundred programs established in the United States alone.

Banker to the Poor is Muhammad Yunus's memoir of how he decided to change his life in order to help the world's poor. In it he traces the intellectual and spiritual journey that led him to fundamentally rethink the economic relationship between rich and poor, and the challenges he and his colleagues faced in founding Grameen. He also provides wise, hopeful guidance for anyone who would like to join him in "putting homelessness and destitution in a museum so that one day our children will visit it and ask how we could have allowed such a terrible thing to go on for so long." The definitive history of micro-credit direct from the man that conceived of it, Banker to the Poor is necessary and inspirational reading for anyone interested in economics, public policy, philanthropy, social history, and business.

Muhammad Yunus was born in Bangladesh and earned his Ph.D. in economics in the United States at Vanderbilt University, where he was deeply influenced by the civil rights movement. He still lives in Bangladesh, and travels widely around the world on behalf of Grameen Bank and the concept of micro-credit.
编辑推荐 Amazon.com
It began with a simple $27 loan. After witnessing the cycle of poverty that kept many poor women enslaved to high-interest loan sharks in Bangladesh, Dr. Muhammad Yunus lent money to 42 women so they could purchase bamboo to make and sell stools. In a short time, the women were able to repay the loans while continuing to support themselves and their families. With that initial eye-opening success, the seeds of the Grameen Bank, and the concept of microcredit, were planted.

After earning a Ph.D. in economics at Vanderbilt University, Dr. Yunus returned to Bangladesh to settle into a life as a professor. But a famine in 1974 ravaged the country, leading Dr. Yunus to alter his thinking and his life profoundly: "What good were all my complex theories when people were dying of starvation on the sidewalks and porches across from my lecture hall?.... Nothing in the economic theories I taught reflected the life around me." Armed with little more than a lofty dream to end the suffering around him, he started an experimental microcredit enterprise in 1977; by 1983 the Grameen Bank was officially formed.

The idea behind the Grameen Bank is ingeniously simple: extend credit to poor people and they will help themselves. This concept strikes at the root of poverty by specifically targeting the poorest of the poor, providing small loans (usually less than $300) to those unable to obtain credit from traditional banks. At Grameen, loans are administered to groups of five people, with only two receiving their money up front. As soon as these two make a few regular payments, loans are gradually extended to the rest of the group. In this way, the program builds a sense of community as well as individual self-reliance. Most of the Grameen Bank's loans are to women, and since its inception, there has been an astonishing loan repayment rate of over 98 percent.

Banker to the Poor is an inspiring memoir of the birth of microcredit, written in a conversational tone that makes it both moving and enjoyable to read. The Grameen Bank is now a $2.5 billion banking enterprise in Bangladesh, while the microcredit model has spread to over 50 countries worldwide, from the U.S. to Papua New Guinea, Norway to Nepal. Ever optimistic, Yunus travels the globe spreading the belief that poverty can be eliminated: "...the poor, once economically empowered, are the most determined fighters in the battle to solve the population problem; end illiteracy; and live healthier, better lives. When policy makers finally realize that the poor are their partners, rather than bystanders or enemies, we will progress much faster that we do today." Dr. Yunus's efforts prove that hope is a global currency. --Shawn Carkonen --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.


专业书评 From Library Journal
Bangladesh, a country the size of Florida with a population of over 120 million people, is the home of Grameen Bank, the inspiration of economist Yunus, Bangladesh-born and U.S.-trained. Instead of spending his life as a university economics professor, Yunus decided in the mid-1970s to develop a micro-lending program to help the poorest people of his country. Yunus based the program on his strong belief that the very poor do not need complicated training programs to improve their economic lot. They need money, in the form of loans. This program has empowered thousands of peopleAmany of them womenAand surprised experts in economic development who never believed that the very poor would find the initiative and ability to repay even the smallest ($25-$500) loans. Grameen ("of the village") Bank has developed into an internationally acclaimed and replicated method for assisting the impoverished in Malaysia, the Philippines, Nepal, and even the United States. Definitely recommended for larger public and academic libraries.AOlga B. Wise, Compaq Computers, Austin
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From AudioFile
This incredible account of Muhammad Yunus and his creation of the Grameen Bank, which provides microcredit loans for the poor, is a wonderful yet heartbreaking memoir, expertly realized by narrator Ray Porter. This story is so powerful that it needs no embellishment, and Porter knows exactly how to read it with a touching and firm delivery that involves listeners instead of preaching to them. There are lessons to be found at every point in the book, namely that credit is a basic human right; that, when given a chance, even the poorest of the poor will repay their loans; and that the human spirit is alive and well. Porter delivers the material as if it were his own. A greater compliment there could not be for audiobook narration. L.B. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award, 2008 Audies Finalist © AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.

Vision Magazine, January 2007
"lays out a convincing argument fro the need to nourish and better understand the `people's economy'...A hopeful and inspiring read"

Election2004.com
"An inspiring memoir of the birth of microcredit, written in a conversational tone that makes it both moving and enjoyable."

Gracious Rants, May 24, 2007
"An interesting story of beginning and hope...I would recommend this book to anyone interested in the problem of poverty..."

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