The nine client-members on the board of the Grameen Bank, all women, have made a sassy public response to the interim report of the commission investigating the Grameen Bank. (Hat tip to the Grameen Foundation.)
I have to admire the pointed prose:
The machinations around the Grameen Bank over the last two years have a had a paradoxical, dreamlike quality. Harsh words have been spoken by mighty leaders. Eminent dignitaries have rushed to the defense. Court battles have been fought. Crimes have been alleged. The mighty Muhammad Yunus has fallen.
It's springtime in Bangladesh, a time when marigolds bloom and a hostile government's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of appointing commissions to investigate banks for the poor. Last year, a commission looked into such issues as whether the Grameen Bank's handling of Norwegian money was nefarious (it determined not) and whether the bank's interest rates were high (no again).
Hillary Clinton passed through Bangladesh last weekend and publicly expressed her strong support for Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank. "I don’t want anything that would in any way undermine what has been a tremendous model." She also visited Yunus, whom she has known since 1986.
Two years ago, I blogged weightily about the Grameen Bank's deteriorating loan portfolio. In the second half of 2009, its repayment rate---fraction of amounts due actually paid---fell from 97.81% to 96.55%.That was hardly catastrophic in itself, but marked the sharpest drop for that indicator in its publicly recorded history.
I recently received an update on the Grameen Bank and the other Grameen organizations. The sender clearly has a point of view and asked to remain anonymous. But the text contains enough that is (for me) novel, factual, documented, and important that I think it worth sharing. Beyond the links provided, I cannot in general vouch for the accuracy of the text:
bdnews24, the enthusiastically anti-Muhammad Yunus website that last year carried the Yunus 'siphoned Tk 7bn aid for poor' headline, just posted on the apparent suicide of a man named Yunus Sardar.
This weekend, the dignitaries of public finance gathered in Washington for the annual meetings of the World Bank and IMF. On Monday morning, the U.S. Bangladesh Advisory Council and the Trade, Aid, and Security Coalition, and the Asia Society took advantage of the presence of Bangladesh's finance minister, A.M.A. Muhith, and central bank governor, Atiur Rahman, hosting them for a public discussion.
First the microcredit women were happy. Then they were sad. Now they are happy again. Here's the trailer for a new documentary called Bonsai People, by Holly Mosher:
CGAP's Greg Chen lives in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. He has closely followed the microfinance difficulties in South Asia.