According to his profile on the Nobel Prize website, Yunus was born in 1940 in Chittagong, a port city in southeastern Bangladesh.
He studied at Dhaka University before receiving the prestigious Fulbright scholarship to attend Vanderbilt University in the United States, where he received a Ph.D. in economics.
In 1972, after Bangladesh won independence from Pakistan, he returned to teach at Chittagong University.
But disaster soon struck. In 1974, a severe famine swept the country, wiping out an estimated 1.5 million people.
“I found it difficult to teach elegant theories of economics in the university classroom, in the backdrop of a terrible famine in Bangladesh. Suddenly, I felt the emptiness of those theories in the face of crushing hunger and poverty,” Yunus said in his 2006 Nobel lecture after receiving the award.
“I wanted to do something immediate to help people around me, even if it was just one human being, to get through another day with a little more ease,” he said.
He began providing small loans out of pocket to the poorest residents in his community, eventually founding the Grameen Bank in 1983, which would become a world leader in alleviating poverty through microlending.
The bank quickly grew, with different branches and similar models now operating worldwide.
Yunus and the Grameen Bank were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 after lending about $6 billion in housing, student, and micro-enterprise loans, specifically in support of Bangladeshi women.
He is also the founder of the Yunus Centre, a Dhaka-based think tank that helps develop new social businesses.
Some critics have questioned Yunus and the Grameen Bank, arguing that some microlenders’ high interest rates have impoverished borrowers while the lenders made big profits from small loans.
Yunus has pushed back on those claims, telling CNN earlier this year that the Grameen Bank doesn’t aim to earn money but to help the poor and empower small businesses.
Dr. Muhammad Yunus Profile
Muhammad Yunus (born June 28, 1940, in Chittagong, East Bengal [now Bangladesh]) is a Bangladeshi economist and founder of the Grameen Bank. This institution provides microcredit (small loans to poor people without collateral) to help its clients establish creditworthiness and financial self-sufficiency. In 2006, Yunus and Grameen received the Nobel Prize for Peace. On August 6, 2024, Yunus was appointed to lead an interim government in Bangladesh following nationwide political unrest and the resignation and flight of former prime minister Sheikh Hasina Wazed.
Academic career
Yunus won a Fulbright scholarship after teaching economics at Chittagong University from 1961 to 1965. He studied and taught at Vanderbilt University from 1965 to 1972, earning a Ph.D. in economics in 1969. He returned to Chittagong University as head of the economics department in 1972 and began studying the economic aspects of poverty in 1974 as famine swept through Bangladesh.
Pioneering microcredit and founding Grameen Bank
Yunus asked students to assist farmers in the fields, but he concluded that agricultural training alone would not benefit the large population of landless poor who had no assets. What these people needed, he believed, was access to money that would help them build small businesses; traditional moneylenders charged usurious interest. In 1976, Yunus began a program of “micro” loans, a credit system designed to meet the needs of people experiencing poverty in Bangladesh. Borrowers, whose loans may be less than $25, join lending groups. Support from group members (in addition to peer pressure) coaxes borrowers to repay their loans. The Bangladesh government made the Grameen Bank Project an independent bank in 1983, with the government owning a minority stake. The Grameen model has spurred other forms of microlending around the world.
Entry into politics and dismissal from Grameen Bank
In February 2007, Yunus entered the Bangladeshi political arena by forming a political party, Nagorik Shakti (Citizen Power), and announcing his intention to contest the upcoming election. His announcement came during a state of emergency and severe conflict between the country’s two major parties, the Awami League and the Bangladesh National Party. Yunus promised his movement would seek to restore good governance and eliminate corruption. In May 2007, however, Yunus dropped his efforts to establish the party, citing a lack of support.
2010: Yunus and Grameen Bank were under scrutiny after the documentary Caught in Micro Debt was released. In addition to being critical of microloans, the film alleged that Yunus and the bank had misappropriated funds donated by Norway. Although Norwegian officials later cleared both, the Bangladesh government began an investigation. In 2011, the country’s central bank dismissed Yunus as managing director of Grameen, citing a mandatory retirement age of 60. Yunus, who had turned 60 in 2000, immediately launched a legal challenge to the decision. However, Bangladesh’s courts subsequently upheld his removal. Yunus maintained that his dismissal was politically motivated and orchestrated by his longtime rival, Sheikh Hasina Wazed.
Literary contributions and global recognition
Yunus wrote several books, including Building Social Business: The New Kind of Capitalism That Serves Humanity’s Most Pressing Needs (2010) and A World of Three Zeroes: The New Economics of Zero Poverty, Zero Unemployment, and Zero Net Carbon Emissions (2017). His honours include Bangladesh’s prestigious Independence Day Award (1987), the World Food Prize (United States, 1994), and the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom (2009). He was the first recipient of the King Hussein Humanitarian Award (Jordan, 2000).
The leadership of the 2024 interim government
Student protests broke out in Bangladesh in July 2024, demanding an overhaul of the selection criteria for civil service jobs. These protests quickly evolved into a broader anti-government movement, leading to calls for Sheikh Hasina Wazed’s resignation by early August. On August 5, Bangladesh’s army chief, Waker-uz-Zaman, confirmed that Hasina had resigned and announced that an interim government would soon be formed. Hasina left the country for India, where she is reportedly staying temporarily.
Following Hasina’s departure, key student leader Nahid Islam called for the Bangladeshi parliament to be dissolved and Yunus to lead an interim government. President. Mohammad Shahabuddin Chuppu acquiesced to both demands on August 6, and Yunus accepted the appointment later that day. Yunus is tasked with restoring order and stability to Bangladesh amid an ongoing national crisis that has escalated to widespread violence and vandalism.
You may like it: GP House Inside: A building with a soul
