Banker to the Poor (29 page)

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In 1970, Pakistan held a general election under a military government. The East Pakistan–based Awami League, under the leadership of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman (“Sheikh Mujib”), won an absolute majority in the national parliament. But the army, which was made up almost entirely of officers and soldiers from West Pakistan, refused to allow the Awami League to form a government. On March 25, 1971, they imposed a military crackdown. The people of East Pakistan responded by declaring the independence of East Pakistan and building resistance to the Pakistani army. The war of liberation for a new country, called Bangladesh, began.

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In 1995, the Consultative Group to Assist the Poorest (CGAP) and the Micro-credit Summit Campaign Committee formally defined a “poor” person as someone who lives below the poverty line and “poorest” as someone in the bottom half of those below the poverty line.

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Under Grameen II, group fund has been replaced by individual savings.

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Grameen derives from the word
gram,
or “village.” Its adjectival form
grameen
means “rural,” or “of the village.”

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By 1989, the size of our typical housing loan had grown to $ 300.

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United Nations General Assembly, 53 rd Session,
The Role of Microcredit in the Eradication of Poverty
(A/53/223, 10 August, 1988).

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New York: Times Books, 1996.

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Hillary Rodham Clinton’s support for the Grameen idea has never diminished. She visited us in Bangladesh in April 1995 and she has visited microcredit programs on three different continents. She also cochaired the Microcredit Summit of 1997.

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New York: Times Books.

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The donor consortium was formed to coordinate our relations with bilateral and multilateral donors that gave us grants and low interest loans during the 1980 s and early 1990 s.

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Bogra and Serajganj are districts in northern Bangladesh. Nimgachi is an area within Serajganj.

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GrameenPhone is a consortium made up of four partners: Telenor of Norway (51%), Grameen Telecom (35%), Marubeni of Japan (9.5%), and Gonophone Development Company (4.5%).

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Non-Grameen borrowers pay a higher fee, the equivalent of five dollars per year, for health coverage for the entire family.

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Alternatively, borrowers can participate in a Grameen-affiliated mutual fund, which may invest part of its assets in such a company.