Q & A with Prof. Muhummad Yunus

The following is excerpt from my interview with Professor Muhummad Yunus, 2006 Nobel Peace Prize winner, and the founder of 'Grameen Bank', Bank for the Poor in Bangladesh. He was in Thailand to open Yunus Centre at the AIT. I did the interview on 19th August 2009 at the Four Seasons Hotel.

Q: Why does the concept of Grameen bank so applicable to many countries around the world to China, to Zimbabwe and to New York and on its way to open the first Grameen bank in Glasgow, Scotland, why it is so?

A: Because people need it. Whether they are in New York or in Glasgow or in Bangladesh or in Thailand, people want to have some small amount of money to carry on with their work but they don’t get it so they have to go to the loan shark which charges high interest rates.With Grameen bank interest rate just to cover the cost and have you to retain your money and improve your life get out of poverty and it works very well with their own bank and they are happy with that.

Q: If you compare different Geographies like New York must have been so different from Bangladesh, why does it work in inner city like New York and Glasgow?

A: Because the need is the same, the countries may be different. Rich people are very rich but the poor are the same whether they are in Bangladesh in New York or Glasgow. People don’t have jobs, they don’t have income they need some money to use their own talents to create activities to start their own business to look after kids, pets dogs or to start the day care center. The spirit of the poor is created by the same kind of system: rejection. Rejection from the system, they don’t get any opportunity like anybody. Nobody will help you.

Q: Is micro-credit the same concept with self-reliance?

A: Yes, micro credit is for you to learn to discover yourself. All human beings are built to do lots of activities lots of potentials but many of them never discover the talents. Many people are full of creativities and talents but they never have the chance to do so because they don’t have option. So microcredit gives them option that you can discover your own talent some of them become very successful with their discovery and they can move very fast from poverty because they have activities they have talents. So this is what it is all about to help you unleash your own talents.

Q: Talking about Thailand, do you know Khru Chob Yodkaew who started with encouraging women in rural area to save more, do you think it is the right direction for Thailand

A: I am not sure so I should not make any comment, but from what you say it is very good idea to go to the villages give loan to the poor women and encourage them to save. Everything that we do is the same thing. This is exactly what we have been doing so somebody is doing that is a great idea.

Q: What will Yunus Centre do for the region?

A: The Yunus Centre at AIT will bring all the idea I have been promoting to Thailand and the region. It is not a Thai organization but it is regional organization so I try to bring those ideas to make it appeal to the region, how to create social business how to bring micro credit how to address social problem in a sustainable way how to create energy of the young people to look at social issue and get involved in helping them, not to learn from the textbook and not to answer in the exam and never really do something else. The whole idea of Yunus centre at AIT is to get people to go out and stop the problem, even just to help even one person to get out of poverty by their own activities so they will be learning a lot from activities and how it can be done. So you have to help people get out of poverty, you learn something and if you apply this to another person, you help two people out of poverty.

Q: Is it like the way you did in 1976?
A: Exactly, this is how I did in Bangladesh in 1976. That’s how it actually goes.

Q: What is more important between having natural resources and having rice attitudes of people to tackle poverty?

A: Must be the same. People may not be have the same kind of attitude that you like to see so you need to build new generation, young people to have those ideas, how to get themselves involved in solving the problem they see around them so that’s not just to get good degree, learn things and get the jobs to become big boss in a big company, that’s not the end of life. Life has to be something that you feel satisfied with what you have done in your life, what impact you have made on other people’s lives.

Q: What do you see yourself 5 years from now, would you go back to politics like what you did in 1996, what pull you back from politics at that time?

A: There was crisis in the country in 2007 to 2008 so I was kind of encouraged by everybody to have a political party to solve problems and under that pressure I finally agree that I would join politics and political party and I saw how difficulty that I have to get good people to help me, but I could not get them, they don’t want to join politics. At one point after 2 months, I said this is enough I don’t want to join politics I will continue to do what I like to do so this is what I think.

Q: You once said you can reduce half of the world poverty in 2015 and in 2030 we will see a museum of poverty, are you still confident about it?

A: I am very serious about it, the first one of 2015, this is the millennium development goal to reduce poverty by half by 2015 and this is global commitment of not just Bangladesh or just one country. So this is everyone in Thailand is doing, in Bangladesh is doing. Many countries will achieve that. We plan to reduce poverty by half in 2015 and I am asking the question that if we know we are going to make it happen why don’t we decide which year we will bring poverty to zero so nobody would remain a poor person remain in the country. So, Bangladesh thinks why don’t we adopt the year 2030 wherein Bangladesh …nobody will remain as a poor person in 2030 and once you can accomplish that then we will build a museum of poverty so that our children and grandchildren when they would like to know about poverty and since we don’t have poverty anywhere, we can take you to the museum to show you what poverty is like, so this is the idea to take poverty into the museum.