[opiniojuris] Roger Alford: Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus on Law and Microfinance

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Posted by Roger Alford:
Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus on Law and Microfinance
http://www.opiniojuris.org/posts/1193487270.shtml


   Last weekend I had the great privilege to meet Nobel Peace Prize
   Laureate Muhammad Yunus. His speech (which you can watch [1]here) was
   one of the most inspirational messages I have heard in years. He
   received several standing ovations and many in the audience were moved
   to tears.
   I brought my children to the speech and explained to them exactly what
   Yunus was doing with microfinance. Their response was, "That's a
   simple idea. Lending someone just enough money to own their own sewing
   machine and then they pay the money back? Why didn't someone think of
   that before?"
   I encourage you to spend an hour and take in Yunus' amazing message
   about the role of microfinance in helping alleviate world poverty.
   One of the more interesting things he had to say was about the
   relationship between law and microfinance. When Yunus was asked how
   law is developing to further his work and help microfinance, here was
   his response (at 1:08th minute):
   
     When we were creating Grameen Bank [in Bangladesh] ⦠we were
     insisting that we be created under a separate law, that we should
     not be asked to create ourselves under existing banking law.
     Finally we succeeded and we have a separate law for ourselves and
     thatâs how we can work the way we do.
     Everywhere we have the problem of the banking lawâ¦. Recently ⦠I
     was meeting with the Chairman of the Federal Reserve [Ben Bernanke]
     and he asked me âHow I can help to bring Grameen Bank programs to
     come to the United States?â I said, âWell, you have to change the
     law. Or create a new law.â
     Existing law as it is everywhere around the world is an
     architecture. Law is basically an architecture of society. ⦠It
     creates a societyâ¦. The present architecture for banking is [the]
     architecture for a supertanker. Itâs a huge, big ship which goes
     into the deep ocean carrying lots of cargo. But when we talk about
     microcredit we are talking about a dingy boat, which goes into the
     shallow water. We cannot create a dingy boat with the architecture
     of a supertanker. If you do that it will sink. It cannot function.
     So we need the architecture of a dingy boat. Then we can create and
     reach out to the families in every place. Because itâs a
     supertanker it cannot go to the small people, because itâs shallow
     waterâ¦. So thatâs one basic thing in legal reform we have to do â¦
     create a banking system which is inclusive, which includes
     everybody, nobody is denied. Not even the beggars, not even the
     homeless persons are excluded.

References

   1. http://www.pepperdine.edu/pr/releases/2007/october/yunusvideo.htm