Muhammad Yunus, Colin Powell: Two Paths to the Same Vision

Muhammad Yunus and Colin Powell delivered luncheon keynote addresses at the sixth annual State of the World Forum on Wednesday, presenting a shared vision of a more just and equitable world. Though the goals they described were the same, the methods and first principles of their work, which they evolved in very different contexts, provided an interesting contrast.

	Muhammad Yunus, Founder and Managing Director, Grameen Bank

Mr. Yunus arrived at the podium and declared himself just a "regular guy" doing "regular work." That work for the past 24 years has been the pioneering of microcredit lending in his native Bangladesh—work that moved Forum president James Garrison to declare that Yunus has done more to alleviate the sufferings of the poor "than anyone else in modern history." Since the 1970s Yunus' Grameen Bank has been lending small amounts of money—as little as a few dollars—to poor villagers who use the money to create small businesses and generate their own income. Yunus' model has become Bangladesh's most famous export: 35 countries now employ more than 100 similar programs.

An economics professor teaching at a college in the United States, Yunus returned to Bangladesh shortly after it achieved independence in 1971. He became disenchanted when the economic theories that were his stock in trade proved so inadequate to address or explain the crushing poverty that gripped his country. Textbooks didn't have the answers he was looking for.

When Bangladesh suffered a major famine in 1974, Yunus says, his country's dream of independence had become a nightmare. Moved to take direct action—however small—to help the poor people of his village, he questioned his neighbors and learned that many of them were mired in poverty due to a lack of even the smallest amount of cash. A woman who crafted beautiful bamboo stools, for instance, couldn't manage a profit because she didn't have the money to purchase the bamboo raw materials. Instead, she borrowed the bamboo from a trader in exchange for an agreement to sell her stools back to the trader for just a penny or two more than the cost of materials, in effect working as a slave laborer.

How much did the bamboo that kept this woman in economic bondage cost? Twenty-five cents. Yunus contemplated lending the woman the money—lending was always the plan, as Yunus says, he has always been opposed to charity—but first decided to see if there were more like her. Talking to more neighbors, Yunus eventually had a list of 42 people, who, in total, were in need of a paltry $27.

The banks were no help. Yunus approached them with his list of potential borrowers but was told, "The poor are not credit worthy." Undaunted, he sought to convince the banks by guaranteeing each of the small loans. In 1976, he co-signed the first of the loans—$300 in total—with the bank telling him to kiss the money good-bye because it would never be repaid.

In fact, the loans were all repaid in full. And despite years of more such successful experiments, he never persuaded the banks to carry on lending to the poor on their own. So he started his own bank.

Today, Grameen Bank operates in 40,000 villages throughout Bangladesh and serves 2.4 million borrowers—95 percent of them women. The small loans have immediate and important impacts on the families receiving the money, allowing them to create their own income sources and thereby improving housing, nutrition and education for millions. Grameen targets the loans to women in particular, having seen that the income women earn has a more direct and substantial beneficial effect on families and communities.

Grameen Bank has spun off innovative new companies that are promoting healthy development and helping to bridge the digital divide. These include Grameen Telephone, which provides funding for rural women to acquire cell phones and serve as a pay telephone service for their villages.

Mr. Yunus' message was simple: If this regular guy could do this regular work and achieve such results, it is incumbent upon all of us to do likewise. We can reshape the 21st century so-called "new economy" into a "new society"—a society that values people first and where poverty exists only in museums.

VIDEO EXCERPT FROM YUNUS

	Colin Powell, Chairman, America's Promise

Powell founded America's Promise, a non-profit organization as the vehicle to achieve this goal. Working with a coalition of citizen volunteers, government officials, business leaders, educators and religious groups, America's Promise says it is pursuing several goals, including the expansion of youth mentoring programs, ensuring safe schools and recreation facilities, promoting child health and nutrition, and providing job training in high-tech to disadvantaged communities.

If the goals are lofty, Powell argues that Americans cannot afford to have greater priorities than their children, and the time has arrived to "free up the wealth" required to meet these challenges. Part of that wealth should come, he said, from a post-Cold War peace dividend, which has yet to materialize. "We can't waste our resources on weapons we don't need"—a bold statement from a retired general. The lesson Powell took from the end of the Cold War—and the challenge he says we all share—is to end conflicts, so we can afford instead to focus our time, wealth and energy on building up a society that is more just and equitable. If Powell eventually returns to high-level government service, he could have the opportunity to put the force of law and federal funds behind these goals.

Powell would like the America's Promise model—under other names—to be exported internationally. The group has begun discussions with organizers in the United Kingdom, Canada, Taiwan, and throughout Latin America.

VIDEO EXCERPT FROM POWELL

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