I am very pleased with this news:
OSLO, Norway (AP) — Bangladeshi economist Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank he founded won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for their pioneering use of tiny, seemingly insignificant loans — microcredit — to lift millions out of poverty.
Through Yunus’s efforts and those of the bank he founded, poor people around the world, especially women, have been able to buy cows, a few chickens or the cell phone they desperately needed to get ahead.
There’s a lot to like about this particular award. It’s so suprisingly anti-Fordist. Microcredit doesn’t rely on faraway expert bureaucrats. It doesn’t rely on government at all. And, as so many have noticed, the approach taken by Yunus has been very pro-woman.
But what I like most about the approach is that it’s so people to people. This is the kind of emergent phenomenon approach that can change the world, inexorably like a sandstorm or a tidal wave. It’s not an individual grain of sand or drop of water that moves mountains or covers landscapes.
More posts on emergent solutions:
American foreign policy in an age of proximity
From Way Up Here
Emergent phenomena
UPDATE:Â Words of caution in the comments from Lounsbury, who urges us not to believe the marketing hype.
Slow down mate, you don’t know what you’re talking about. Microcredit is indeed all the rage and quite the development fad.
It, however, is merely a financial tool, and it is not clear leaving aside the hype and pimping, how effective a financial tool it is, being rather high cost.
Now as to your cheerleading statements, well, that’s ignorant tripe:
Microcredit doesn’t rely on faraway expert bureaucrats. It doesn’t rely on government at all.
Bollocks. Microcredit needs capital, so far much capital for seeding micro-credit (and re-seeding as it is not self-sustaining across the board) comes from Developmental Agency funds. that means, of course expert bureaucrats and government.
I am unaware of any microcredit facility that has not commenced in that manner, and most genuine microcredit intitutions (there are things out there called micro-credit that are not micro-credit but merely traditional low-income banking being dressed up in a sexy name) remain non-commercial ventures (in the sense of being profitable, on-going ventures).
And, as so many have noticed, the approach taken by Yunus has been very pro-woman.
Wow, and bunnies are involved!!!!
Pro women bollocks is to make Westerners feel good. Bloody bollocks.
But what I like most about the approach is that it’s so people to people. This is the kind of emergent phenomenon approach that can change the world, inexorably like a sandstorm or a tidal wave. It’s not an individual grain of sand or drop of water that moves mountains or covers landscapes.
You need a reality check mate. Never, ever believe marketing spin.
Let me add however, that I don’t think that Microcredit is either a bad thing OR that the Grameen Bank doesn’t deserve the award.
Microcredit is an interesting tool, and Grameen Bank has “invented” something useful. It’s founder is fully deserving of the award.
However, it is presently being far oversold. Like the Internet. It’s worthy and useful, but much of the hype is so overdone as to be messianically delirious.
My very limited understanding is that they do not charge any interest (is it true that you only repay the principal or is this an “islam” thing where you can’t call it interest but need to find a workaround to make everyone happy?). If no financial gain is made by the lender, then how is this a workable business model? How much of the capital that they lend out is derived from donations? Sounds like a great idea for a charity but as for a business?