Muhammad Yunus
Muhammad Yunus (Bengali: মুহাম্মদ ইউনুস, pronounced Muhammôd Iunūs) (Chittagong, June 28, 1940), is a social entrepreneur, banker, economist and social leader. Bangladeshi awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for developing the Grameen Bank and for being the developer of the concepts of microcredit, (invented by Pakistani Dr. Akhter Hameed Khan), and microfinance. These credits are granted to entrepreneurs who are too poor to qualify for a loan from a traditional bank. In 2006, Yunus and the Grameen Bank were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize "for their efforts to encourage social and economic development from below". The Norwegian Nobel Committee made noting that "lasting peace cannot be achieved unless large groups of the population find ways in which they can lift themselves out of poverty" and that "across cultures and civilizations, Yunus and the Grameen Bank have demonstrated that even the poorest of the poor can work for their own development." Yunus has received various national and international honors. He receiving from the United States the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009 and the Congressional Gold Medal in 2010.
Founder of the Grameen Bank, he was awarded the 1998 Prince of Asturias Award for Concord, the 1996 Simón Bolívar International Award and the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize «for his efforts to encourage social and economic development from down."
A non-practicing Muslim, he studied Economics in New Delhi and furthered his studies in the United States with scholarships from the Fulbright and Eisenhower institutions and from Vanderbilt University. He returned to his country in 1972 to head the Department of Economics at the University of Chittagong, shortly after Bangladesh gained independence.
In 2008 Foreign Policy magazine ranked him number 2 on the list of 'Top 100 Global Thinkers'.
In February 2011, Yunus together with Saskia Bruysten, Sophie Eisenmann and Hans Reitz co-founded Social Business – Yunus Social Initiative (YSB). YSB creates and enables social businesses to solve social problems around the world. As Yunus' vision of a new human capitalism is implemented, YSB runs a fund incubator for social businesses in developing countries and provides advice to companies, governments, foundations and NGOs.
In 2012, he became Chancellor of Glasgow Caledionian University in Scotland. He is also a member of the board of trustees of Shahjalal University of Science and Technology. He previously was a professor of economics at the University of Chittagong in Bangladesh. He has published several books related to his financial work, and is a founding board member of Grameen America and the Grameen Foundation which support microcredit.
Yunus also serves on the board of directors of the United Nations Foundation, a public charity created in 1998 by American philanthropist Ted Turner' who contributed $1 billion to United Nations causes.
In March 2011, the Bangladeshi government fired Yunus from his position at Grameen Bank citing legal violations and an age limit on his position. The Bangladeshi Supreme Court affirmed Yunus's removal from office on 8 March March. Yunus and the Grameen Bank appealed the decision, arguing that Yunus' removal was politically motivated.
Early years and education
Early Years
The third of nine children, Yunus was born on 28 June 1940 to a Bengali Muslim family in the village of Bathua, off Boxirhat Road in Hathazari, Chittagong during the Bengali presidency of the British Raj, which today forms Bangladesh modern. His father was Hazi Dula Mia Shoudagar, a jeweler and his mother was Sufia Khatun. The first years of his childhood were spent in the village. In 1944, his family moved to the city of Chittagong, and he transferred from the village school to Lamabazar Primary School. By 1949, his mother had a psychological illness. Later, he passed the examination to enroll in the School. A Chittagong schoolboy, ranking 16th out of 39,000 students in East Pakistan. During his school years, he was an active Boy Scout and traveled to western Pakistan and India in 1952, as well as Canada in 1955 to attend the Jamborees. Later while studying at the Chittagong School, Yunus became active in cultural activities and won theater awards. In 1957, he enrolled in the Department of Economics at Dhaka University and completed his professional degree in 1960 and a master's degree in 1961.
After Graduation
After graduation, Yunus joined the Bureau of Economics as a research assistant for the research of Professors Nurul Islam and Rehman Sobhan. Later, he was a lecturer in economics at Chittagong University in 1961. During that time he also founded a packaging factory of his own. In 1965, he received a Fulbright scholarship to study in the United States. He earned his Ph.D. in economics from Vanderbilt University's Program Economics Development Department (GPED) in 1971. From 1969 to 1972, Yunus was an assistant professor of economics at Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro.
During the 1971 Bangladesh liberation war, Yunus founded a citizens' committee and the Bangladesh Information Center with other Bangladeshis in the United States to raise support for liberation. He also published the Bangladesh Fact Sheet from her home in Nashville. After the end of the war, Yunus returned to Bangladesh having been chosen for the government's Planning Commission headed by Nurul Islam. However, he found the job boring and resigned to join Chittagong University as the head of the Economics department. After observing the famine of 1974, Yunus became involved in poverty reduction by establishing a rural economic program as a project of investigation. In 1975 he developed a Nabajug (New Age) and a Tebhaga Khamar (shared farm) which the government adopted as the Packaged Contribution Scheme. To make the project more effective, Yunus and his partners proposed the Gram Sarkar (the people's government program). Introduced by President Ziaur Rahman in the late 1970s, the government formed 40,392 people's governments as a fourth layer of government in 2003. In August 2005 in response to a petition from the Bangladesh Legal Aid Services (BLAST) Supreme Court declared people's governments illegal and unconstitutional.
His concept of micro-loans to support innovators in multiple developing countries inspired programs like the Infolady Social Entrepreneurship Program.
Start of stroke
In 1976, during his visits to the poorest neighborhoods in the city of Jobra near the University of Chittagong, Yunus discovered that small loans could make a considerable difference to poor people. Village women who made bamboo furniture had to accept usurious loans to buy bamboo and pay back almost all of their earnings to the moneylender. Traditional banks did not want to offer small loans at a reasonable interest rate to the poor because of the risk involved. But Yunus believed that, given the opportunity, the poor could afford the money and that microcredit was a business model. viable. Yunus lent $27 of his money to 42 village women who made a profit of 0.50 Taka (US$0.02) on each loan. Yunus is then credited with the idea of micro credit along with Dr. Akhtar Hameed Khan, founder of the Pakistan Academy for Rural Development (now Bankgladesi Academy for Rural Development), whom Yunus admires.
In December 1976, Yunus finally secured a loan from Janata Bank to lend to the poor in Jobra. The institution continues to operate, securing loans from other banks for its projects. By 1982 it had 28,000 members. On October 1, 1983, the pilot project went into operation as a full-fledged bank for the poor of Bangladesh and was renamed the Grameen Bank ('People's Bank'). Yunus and her colleagues challenged everyone from violent right-wing radicals to conservative clergy that women who asked for money from the Grameen Bank would be denied a Muslim burial. By July 2007, the Grameen Bank had awarded $6.38 billion to 7.4 million of people. To ensure the payment of the debt, the bank uses a system of "solidarity groups". These small, informal groups apply together for loans and their members guarantee each other's repayments and support each other's efforts to achieve economic advancement.
In the late 1980s, Grameen began to diversify into servicing underutilized fishponds and irrigation pumps such as deep wells. In 1989, these diversified interests began to grow into separate organizations. The pond project became Grameen Motsho ("Grameen Fisheries Foundation") and the irrigation project became Grameen Krishi ("Grameen Agriculture Foundation"). Over time the Grameen initiative grew into a multifaceted group of profitable organizations including large projects such as the Grameen Trust and Grameen Fund, which runs projects such as Grameen Software Limited, Grameen CyberNet Limited and Grameen Knitwear Limited, as well as Grameen Telecom, which is a division in Grameenphone (GP), the largest private telephone company in Bangladesh. From its inception in March 1997 until 2007, the "People's Phone" (Polli Phone) has provided cell phones to 260,000 poor people in more than 50,000 villages.
The success of the Grameen microfinance model has inspired similar efforts in approximately 100 developing countries and even in developed countries such as the United States. Many microcredit projects retained the idea of lending to women. More than 94% of Grameen loans have been awarded to women who suffer disproportionately from poverty and are more likely than men to spend their earnings on their families.
For this work with Grameen, Yunus was named an Ashoka Fellow: Innovators for the Public, by the Global Academy in 2001. In the book Grameen Social Business Model, [2] Rashidul Bari shows how the model of Grameen Social Business (GSBM) - has gone from theory to inspiring practice adopted by leading universities (e.g. Glasgow), entrepreneurs (e.g. Franck Riboud) and companies (e.g. Danone) around the world. Through Grameen Bank Rashidul Bari says [3] that Yunus demonstrated how the Grameen Social Business Model can engage entrepreneurship to empower women out of poverty. One conclusion of Yunus's concepts is that the poor are like a bonsai bush and can do great things if given the power to become self-sufficient.
Acknowledgments
Yunus received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006, along with the Grameen Bank for his efforts to create an environment of social and economic development. In the award announcement, the Norwegian Nobel Committee mentioned that:
Yunus was the first Bangladeshi to win a Nobel Prize. Upon receiving news of the significant prize, Yunus announced that he would use part of the $1.4 million prize to create a company that makes low-cost, highly nutritious food for the poor; while the rest of the money would go towards the construction of an eye hospital in Bangladesh.
Former US President Bill Clinton has defended awarding Yunus the Nobel Peace Prize. He expressed this in Rolling Stone magazine as well as in his autobiography My Life. In a speech at the University of California, Berkeley in 2002, President Clinton described Yunus as "a man long overdue for the Nobel Prize [and] I'll keep saying that until he finally gets it". Conversely, The Economist said that Yunus was a poor choice for the prize, stating & #34;...The Nobel Committee could have made a more difficult, and courageous decision by declaring there would be no winner".
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Yunus is one of only seven people to have won the Nobel Peace Prize, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the Congressional Medal. Other notable awards include the Ramón Magsaysay Prize in 1984, the Premio Alimentación World Cup, the Simón Bolívar International Prize (1996), the Prince of Asturias Award for Concord and the Sydney Peace Prize in 1998, and the Seoul Peace Prize in 2006. In addition, he has been awarded 50 honorary doctorates from universities in 20 different countries and 113 international awards from 26 different countries, including state honors from 10 countries. The government of Bangladesh issued a commemorative stamp to its Nobel Prize winner.
Yunus was named by Fortune Magazine in March 2012 as one of the 12 Greatest Entrepreneurs of Today. In this quote, Fortune Magazine said ″Yunus's idea inspired countless young people to dedicate themselves to social causes around the world″.
In January 2012, Yunus was featured in the book Transformative Entrepreneurs: How Walt Disney, Steve Jobs, Muhammad Yunus and Other Innovators Succeeded by Jeffrey Harris.
Yunus was named a Nobel Laureate in Residence at the Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (National University of Malaysia) on July 15, 2011.
Yunus gave the Seventh Annual Nelson Mandela Lecture.
In January 2008, the city of Houston, Texas declared January 14 as "Muhammad Yunus Day."
On May 15, 2010, Yunus gave a speech at Rice University for the class of 2010. On May 16 of the same year, Yunus gave another speech at Duke University for the class of 2010. During this ceremony, he was awarded an honorary degree Doctor of Humane Letters.
Yunus was invited and gave the commencement address for the Wharton School of Business on May 17, 2009, the commencement address at MIT on June 6, 2008, the Adam Smith Lecture at Glasgow University on December 1, 2008 and the Roman Conference in Oxford on December 2 of the same year.
Received the Dwight D. Eisenhower Medal for Leadership and Service by the Eisenhower Community at a ceremony in Philadelphia on May 21, 2009. He was also voted No. 2 in the ranking of the World's 100 Intellectuals by Prospect Magazine in 2008.
Yunus was named among the most desired thinkers the world should listen to by the FP 100 (in the world's top elite edition) in December 2009 of Foreign Policy magazine. On March 1, 2010, Yunus was named the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign's prestigious Presidential Award. The highest honor of this university.
A documentary of Yunus's work titled To Catch a Dollar was shown at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival and was released in US theaters in September 2010..
In 2010, the British magazine New Statesman listed Yunus as number 40 on its list of "The 50 Most Influential Figures of 2010".
In October 2010, he received the Social Entrepreneur of the Year Award at the Asian Awards.
On September 22, 2011 the documentary Bonnsai People – The Vision of Muhammad Yunus, the first documentary to show all his work in the social business of microcredits was released at the United Nations.
Yunus received 50 honorary doctorate degrees from universities in Argentina, Australia, Bangladesh, Belgium Canada, Costa Rica, India, Italy, Japan, Korea, Lebanon, Malaysia, Russia, South Africa, Spain, Thailand, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States and Peru.
The Secretary General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-Moon, invited Yunus to serve as MDG Advocate. Yunus is part of the tables of the United Nations Foundation, the Schwab Foundation, the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation and the Grameen Agricultural Microcredit Foundation. He has been a member of the Chirac Foundation honor committee since the foundation was started in 2008 by former French President Jacques Chirac to promote world peace.
Yunus has appeared on The Jon Stewart Show and The Oprah Winfrey Show in 2006 The Colbert Report in 2008, Real Time with Bill Maher in 2009 and The Simpsons in 2010. On Google+, Yunus is one of the most followed people around the world with 1.7 million followers.
In 2012 Yunus was appointed Chancellor of the University of Glasgow. The White House and Senate held a ceremony to award Yunus the Congressional Medal on April 17, 2013 in Washington, D.C for his contributions to fighting global poverty.
The Congressional Medal is the highest civilian honor bestowed by the United States Congress. At the ceremony, which could be watched on YouTube, Senator Dick Durbin explained why Yunus is a visionary: "It's been said that almost anyone can do something complicated. It really takes a genius to do something simple. My friends, without error Muhammad Yunus is a genius" The Gold Medal was awarded to Yunus by the 111th Congress of Public Law 53.
Political activity
In early 2006 Yunus, along with other members of civil society including Professor Rehman Sobhan, Muhammad Habibur Rahman, Dr Kamal Hossain, Matiur Rahman, Mahfuz Anam and Debapriya Bhattchariya, participated in a campaign for honest and clean candidates in national elections. He considered entering politics later that year. On February 11, 2007, Yunus wrote an open letter published in the Bangladeshi newspaper Daily Star, where he asked the citizens their views on their plan to create a political party to establish a policy of goodwill, leadership and good governance. The letter called for a brief outline of how the task should be done and how they could contribute. Yunus eventually announced that he was willing to launch a political party tentatively called Citizen Power ( Nagorik Shakti) on February 18, 2007. There was speculation that the army was supporting a move by Yunus into politics. On May 3, Yunus declared that he decided to abandon his political plans following a meeting with the leader of the interim government, Fakhruddin Ahmed.
In July 2007 in Johannesburg, South Africa, Nelson Mandela, Graça Machel, and Desmond Tutu convened a group of world leaders “to contribute their wisdom, independent leadership, and integrity to address some of the world's toughest problems.” Nelson Mandela announced the formation of his new group, The Elders, in a speech he gave to celebrate his 89th birthday. Yunus was present at the group's launch and was one of the founding members. Yunus left the group in September 2009 arguing that he was unable to do justice to his membership due to his demanding work.
Yunus is a member of the Africa Progress Panel (APP), a group of ten distinguished individuals who evoke the highest levels of sustainable and equitable development in Africa. Each year, the Panel creates a report: the Africa Progress Report, which highlights a problem of immediate importance to the continent and suggests a list of policies. In 2012, the Africa Progress Report highlighted issues such as jobs, justice, and equity. The 2013 report set out issues related to oil, gas, and mining in Africa.
In July 2009, Yunus became a member of the organization SNV Development Netherlands to support the organization's poverty reduction work.
Since 2010, Yunus has served as Commissioner for the Broadband Commission for Digital Development, a UN initiative that seeks to use broadband Internet services to accelerate economic and social development.
Yunus also serves on the board of advisors for the Holcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction, a foundation that supports initiatives that combine building solutions and architectural excellence.
In 2011, Yunus was part of the jury that chose the universal logo for Human Rights. Her goal was to create an internationally recognized logo that would support the global movement for human rights.
Disputes
Since the end of November 2010, many statements have been made against Yunus. They started with a critique of microcredit and blamed Grameen Bank on many points in the documentary "Trapped in Microcredit" on Norwegian television on November 30, 2010. This has in turn developed more complex questions about the benefits of microcredit. micro-finance and its effects on poverty alleviation, particularly in regards to various microfinance institutions in India and Mexico.
The allegations against Yunus turned political when the Bangladeshi government, led by Sheikh Hasina Wajed, turned on Yunus and his microfinance concept, accusing him of "sucking the blood of the poor". Wajed is said to have viewed Yunus as a political rival ever since he considered creating a political party in 2007. – In the book Grameen Social Business Model Rashidul Bari explains Sheikh Hasina's political vendetta in Bangladesh against Yunus as payment for the conflict as the conflict between Pope Urban VIII and Galileo Galilei.
"Pope Urban VIII put a 70-year-old Galileo in prison in 1632 rejecting the geocentric model of Ptolomeo, which was adopted by the Christian Church. The same Tuco spirit Sheikh Hasina, who labeled Yunus as a “living of the poor”—releasing his propaganda machine (e.g., AMA Muhith) to remove Yunus from Grameen—and used the Supreme Court and High Court to justify his decision. Why did Pope Urban VIII insult the father of astronomy? Because Galileo rejected the vision of the Christian church that said the earth was the center of the Universe, and that other celestial objects orbit around it.
The government announced the review of Grameen Bank's activities on January 11, 2011. In February, several international leaders, including Mary Robinson, came to the defense of Yunus through a number of efforts including the creation of a formal network of supporters known as 'The Friends of Grameen'.
On February 15, 2011, the Bangladeshi finance minister, Abul Maal Abdul Muhith, stated that Yunus should step away from Grameen Bank while investigations were carried out. On March 22 of the same year, Muzammel Huq – a former employee of the bank was appointed president. -Announcing that Yunus had been sacked as Managing Director of the bank. However, the bank's General Manager Jannat-E Quanine said that Yunus "continued in his office" pending review of the legal issues surrounding the controversy.
In March 2011, Yunus petitioned the Supreme Court of Bangladesh challenging the legal decision of the Central Bank of Bangladesh on his removal as General Manager of the bank. On the same day, nine directors of the bank petitioned for a second petition. to Hillary Clinton, John Kerry expressed his support for Yunus with a comment on March 5, 2001, stating that he was "deeply concerned" For this problem. On the same day in Bangladesh, thousands of people protested and formed human chains to support Yunus. The High Court, hearing the petitions, a final decision was planned for March 6, 2011, but it was postponed and on March 8, In the same year, the court upheld Yunus' dismissal.
Fraud accusations
A Danish documentary Caught in Micro Debt, produced and directed by journalist Tom Heinemann, televised on Norwegian national television channel NRK in November 2010. It made a series of accusations against Yunus and the Grameen Bank. Those accusations were refuted by subsequent inquiries. The documentary falsely accused Yunus and the Bank of having diverted 7 million taka (approximately $100 million) granted by the Norwegian Agency for Development and Cooperation (NORAD) to another organization called Grameen Kaylan in the year 1996. This The allegation was reported widely in the Bangladeshi media in December 2010. On December 6, NORAD released a statement clearing the name of Yunus and Grameen Bank of wrongdoing up to that point, followed by sympathetic comments of support from the Minister of International Development of NORAD.
However, these accusations spread rapidly across Bangladesh. Bangladeshi economist Rehman Sobhan said, “Rather than seeking a rating and response from the Grameen Bank and validation of the TV show, some sectors of the press and society have shown unprecedented enthusiasm for using it as an opportunity to point out bad practices in a widely reputable organization. "Yunus called for consistency and transparency in investigations into the issue." Bangladeshi-Canadian social worker and author Reza Sattar has written about Yunus' involvement in the microcredit conspiracy scene and the way in which has affected Bangladesh in his book - Nobel Harvest Foundation.
Accusations of usury and effectiveness in microfinance
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The accusations against Muhammad Yunus and the bank were made in a context where many people began to question the effectiveness of microfinance, questions that were raised due to the actions of some for-profit microfinance institutions. (MFIs) in India and Mexico Cohesion, pressure and physical abuse were practices used for payment in some microfinance companies. The commercialization of microcredit forced Yunus to say that "he would never have imagined that one day the micro-loans would work to feed their own breed of dishonest lenders.”
The proceeds attracted the attention of some microfinancers looking for money to make the first public offerings, including India's largest microfinance company SKS Microfinance which in July 2010 made its first public offering. In September 2010, Yunus criticized the offer in a meeting with SKS founder Vikram Akula during the Clinton Global Initiative summit, saying "Micro lending is not about inciting some people to profit from the poor, that is what you are doing.. It's the wrong message". Current interest calculations vary, but one proposes an average interest of 23% for Grameen Bank. At the same time, the organization does not pay taxes on the status it had, status that has been removed.
Yunus supporters allege the Bangladeshi government is exploiting the "micro-credit crisis" to evict Yunus.
Political motivations behind the accusations
Although the Grameen Bank quickly cleared up allegations of diversion of funds from the Norwegian government in December 2010, in March of the following year the Bangladeshi government began a three-month investigation into all Bank activities. This investigation prevented Yunus from participating in the World Economic Forum.
In January 2011, Yunus appeared in court in a defamation case filed by a local politician from a small left-wing party, complaining about an argument Yunus made to the AFP news agency. 'Politicians in Bangladesh only work for power. There is no ideology there.” At the hearing, Yunus was granted bail so he did not have to appear at subsequent hearings.
Investigations raised suspicions that many attacks and accusations could be politically motivated, due to the difficult relations between Sheikh Hasina and Yunus since early 2007, when Yunus was creating his political party, efforts that were diluted in May 2007.
Transition to a new administration
At 72 years old, Yunus was 12 years over the legal retirement age for civilians in Bangladesh in 2011. Government spokesmen asked Yunus to step down, stating, "We need redefine the role of the bank and have greater regulation".
Chairman Muzammel Huq, a Grameen Bank foundation figure and one of the senior managers, in GB investigations and operations since the early 2000s has publicly criticized Yunus saying "I think he is a good man with a small heart... He can't give credit to anyone but himself".
Accusations involving partners: the food case and the telephone case
On January 27, 2011, Yunus appeared in court in a food adulteration case by Dhaka City Corporation (DCC), the Food Safety Court accused him of producing "adulterated yoghurt" whose fat content was below the established legal limit. This yogurt is produced by Grameen Danone, a social business part of the "joint venture" o Joint project between Grameen Bank and Danone that aims to provide opportunities for yogurt street vendors while improving child nutrition with nutrient-fortified yogurt. According to Yunus's lawyer, the accusations were "false and without foundation". At the request of Yunus's lawyers, who pointed out irregularities and errors, the case was considered by the High Court.
On February 15, 2011, Yunus was summoned by a court in Pabna in northern Bangladesh to appear on April 18 in a fraud case involving Grameen Phone. This case was about a phone user from a town receiving phone bills stating that payment had not been made, despite the fact that the customer made payments regularly.
A 2012 investigation by an independent public commission alleges that Yunus misrepresented his authority and abused his powers during his administration. The report establishes abuses of authority for the Grameen Bank, which acted as guarantor and remitted loans to independent private companies during the administration of Dr. Yunus. The report raised controversy and certain specific questions related to a) establishment and financing of Grameen Phone, a for-profit telecommunications entity established by Grameen Bank in conjunction with the Norwegian government, owned by Telenor and Yunus and b) simultaneous administration and financing operating for private companies established by Dr. Yunus applying resources from the Grameen Bank. The commission also established the legal status of the Grameen Bank and concluded that it was de jure public (for public purposes). Example: a government entity that with incompetent supervision by the state and misrepresentation by Yunus resulted in the perception of private property.
The commission's report also speaks of obstruction of the commission's investigations by the current Grameen Bank management, representatives of Telenor and the Bangladeshi government, as well as Yunus supporters. The implications of this report have not been carefully examined by the country's press, nor by the Pro-Yunus press, where these implications for Dr. Yunus include corruption networks and links between commercial public establishments in collusion with other parties. See the Commission Report on Grameen Bank https://web.archive.org/web/20170303124442/http://www.mof.gov.bd/en/budget/gb/Grameen_Bank_Interim_Report.pdf.
Critique of ideas
Microfinance has been similarly criticized by the international press. The English newspaper The Guardian wondered if microfinance was a "neoliberal fairy tale" since the loans are focused on individuals. The newspaper article points out that most loans are not used for the creation of micro-enterprises but for "smooth consumption".
Yunus' much-touted ideas on "social business" have been called a "corporate camouflage" by AntiCSR. The website claims that there are no real criteria for being a "social business" more than helping people. Many companies call themselves Social Enterprises to achieve philanthropic company status. Yunus describes a Social Enterprise as a "no dividends" company. However, owners and managers take great care of operating funds (such as salaries and dues) outside the company while the company remains "without dividends". The AntiCSR organization states that the characteristics that define a company as social are vague and subjective. His work has been such, in the fight against poverty, that in 2007, both Yunus and the Grameen Bank were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. It was considered that the peace prize, and not the economy prize, was more representative of the work of Yunus and his team, since extreme poverty has been classified as one of the main and most recurring reasons for current conflicts around the world. the globe: poverty is the greatest threat to world peace.
Personal life
In 1967, while Yunus was at Vanderbilt University, he met Vera Forostenko, a Russian literature student and daughter of Russian immigrants in Trenton, New Jersey, United States whom he married in 1970. Yunus's marriage to Vera ended up just months away from the birth of their infant daughter Monica Yunus (born 1979 in Chittagong), while Vera returned to New Jersey because she said Bangladesh was not a good place to raise a baby. Yunus later married. with Afrozi Yunus, who was at the time a Physics Research Fellow at the University of Manchester. Later she was Professor of Physics at Jahangimagar University. Their daughter Deena Afroz Yunus was born in 1986.
Yunus's brothers were also active in the academy. His brother Muhammad Ibrahim is a professor of physics at Dhaka University and founder of the Center for Mass Science Education (CMES), which provides science education to adolescent girls in villages. His younger brother Muhammad Jahangir is a popular television presenter and a well-known social activist in Bangladesh. He is also the moderator of various & # 34;talk shows & # 34; in Bangladesh. Monica Yunus, her eldest daughter, is a Russian-Bangladeshi-American soprano working in New York City.
Yunus Center
The Yunus Center in Dhaka, Bangladesh is a "think tank" for problems related to social business, working in the field of poverty reduction and sustainability. Its objective is primarily to promote and disseminate the philosophy of Professor Yunus, with a special focus on social business and is currently headed by Muhammad Yunus.
Books
- Three farmers from JobraDepartment of Economics, University of Chittagong; 1974
- Planning in Bangladesh: Format, Technique and Priority, and other trials; Rural Studies Project, University of Economics Department Chittagong; 1976
- Jorimon and Others: Faces of Poverty (co-author: Saiyada Manajurula Isalama, Arifa Rahman); Grammen Bank, 1991
- Grameen Bank, as I see it; Grameen Bank; 1994
- Banquero de los Pobres: Micro-Préstamos y la Batalla En contra la Pobreza MundialPublic Affairs; 2003; ISBN 978-1-58648-198-8
- Creating a World Without Poverty: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism; Public Affairs; 2008; ISBN 978-1-58648-493-4
- Building Social Business: The New Way of Capitalism that Serves the Most Important Needs of Humanity"; Public Affairs; 2010; ISBN 978-1-58648-824-6
Awards and Honors
- 1984, Ramón Magsay
- 2006, awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for its financial work
- Choosed by Wharton Business School in Philadelfy as one of "The 25 Most Influent Business People in the Past 25 Years" in a PBS documentary.
- 2006, Time Magazine classified it as one of the 12 most important business leaders in "60 years of Asian Heroes".
- 2008, Yunus was voted number 2 on the list of "Top 100 Public Intellectuals" in an open survey by Prospect Magazines (United Kingdom) and Foreign Policy (United States).
- 2009, Yunus received the Golden Biatec Award, the most important award awarded by the Slovak Informal Economic Forum, by individuals who exhibit economic, social, scientific, educational and cultural achievements in the Republic of Slovakia.