Who's Who
The Allianz Knowledge Site's Who's Who features people and organizations that make a difference in the areas of climate change, microfinance, and demographic change.
Muhammad Yunus
Who's that?
Founder of Grameen Bank, Nobel Prize Laureate
What does he do?
Muhammad Yunus is a Bangladeshi banker and economist. Trained as an economist in Bangladesh and later in the United States, Yunus returned to Bangladesh after the country became independent in 1971 to help with nation-building. He later lectured as an professor of economics, until he decided apply the concept of microcredit into practical life to protect small entrepreneurs from predatory lending.
In 1974, he gave out 27 dollars worth of loans to women in a village next to his university. After building on the initial success of these loans, he founded Grameen Bank in 1976, and the bank became an independent entity 1983. Despite setbacks, the bank grew throughout Bangladesh and has spawned many similar microcredit initiatives internationally.
In 2006, Yunus and Grameen Bank were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize "for their efforts to create economic and social development from below." Yunus received numerous other honors, including the ITU World Information Society Award, Ramon Magsaysay Award, the World Food Prize and the Sydney Peace Prize. He is the author of "Banker to the Poor" and a founding board member of Grameen Foundation.
