Microcredit and Social Business Movement as Catalyst for Poverty Eradication: The Grameen Experience

Being a country of developing world, Bangladesh has a long-standing history of fighting poverty by means of microcredit. Thanks to the development of group lending approach of Grameen Bank established by Nobel laureate Professor Mohammad Yunus, which has later been widely accepted as an alternative to the traditional collateral based lending in extending credit facilities to the door of hard core poor at affordable terms, Bangladesh has been able to register tremendous success in alleviating poverty. Apart from Bangladesh, Grameen type microcredit programmes are now being replicated in more than 100 countries both in the developing and developed world. At the same time, Grameen has constantly been devising new entrepreneurial solutions to the problems of the poor in the name of social business- a social cause driven, non-loss, non-dividend, self-reliant business dedicated to serve the most pressing needs of the disadvantaged. Muhammad Yunus has been successful to create a global infrastructure for social business which is working as a catalyst for encouraging social business experimentations around the world. The paper will critically examine the Grameen solidarity lending mechanism and social business framework and their efficiency in approaching poverty with their cross border experiences.