CHARITY WAS NOT A SUSTAINABLE WAY OF ERADICATING POVERTY

The founder of the Grameen Bank Nobel Peace laureate Dr Muhammad Yunus said helping the poor by giving handouts or through any form of charity was not a sustainable way of eradicating poverty. Poverty is not about giving money to the poor, he said.

The more effective way is to harness their entrepreneurial potential by developing ‘social businesses’ that can offer a long-term solution to address poverty and more importantly, the global social and economic imbalance," he said this at the Khazanah Global Lectures.

During the hour-long lecture, Yunus also outlined how he fought poverty, which eventually led to the founding of the Grameen bank, which initiated micro-credit financing schemes. The schemes were replicated all round the world. He said women formed the backbone of the bank but it was never his intention for the bank to become a lender primarily to women.

Women were found to be better managers of funds as they made the most of the resources available to them.

A good example of this was the way they managed the household with whatever money their husbands gave them.

"It was a skill they brought to managing the loans given to them," he said.

Yunus said the bank not only gave out loans but also monitored the impact the loans had on the lives of the borrowers.

He said most of borrowers ensured their children went to schools and in many cases, the children of borrowers began topping the classes they attended.

"We wanted to celebrate this and so we introduced scholarships for talented students. Grameen Bank now gives 30,000 scholarships every year." Yunus said his work in helping the poor had convinced him that poverty could be eradicated."

I believe that we can create a poverty-free world because poverty is not created by poor people. "It has been created and sustained by the economic and social system that we have designed for ourselves, the institutions and concepts that make up that system and the policies that we pursue."

USM Chancellor Tuanku Syed Sirajuddin Syed Putra Syed Jamalullail with Tuanku Fauziah Tengku Abdul Rashid sharing a light moment with Dr Muhammad Yunus (right) and Professor Pierre Steinmetz (left) after USM’s 36th convocation yesterday.

Yunus was conferred the honorary doctorate of economics in conjunction with Universiti Sains Malaysia’s 36th convocation. More story, here