 | |
| Formation | 2006 |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Dhaka, Bangladesh |
| Website | www.yunuscentre.org |
The Yunus Centre, in Dhaka, Bangladesh is a think tank for issues related to social business, working in the field of poverty alleviation and sustainability. It is 'aimed primarily at promoting and disseminating Professor Yunus' philosophy, with a special focus on social business'. [1] As of 2023 [update] it is chaired by Prof. Muhammad Yunus, and its executive director is Ms. Lamiya Morshed. [2]
After Prof. Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank received the Nobel Peace Prize in October 2006, a personal office for Prof. Yunus under the name of ‘Yunus Secretariat’ was formed. From the very beginning on, the Yunus Secretariat was mainly aiming at promoting Prof. Yunus’ philosophy of social business and served as a one-stop resource centre for anyone interested in social business. [3]
In July 2008, it was renamed the Yunus Centre and continues to develop new social businesses, provide technical help to social business start-ups and liaise with anybody interested in the topic. They also publish a quarterly newsletter on new developments in the field of social business. [4]
Yunus Centre is working to promote the United Nations Millennium Development Goals in Bangladesh and all around the world and is especially committed for making Bangladesh free of poverty by 2030.
Disseminating the ideas and philosophy of Prof. Yunus on social business and microfinance.
Acting as the primary source of information on social businesses worldwide and providing consulting services to start-ups. Its New Entrepreneur Project funded 385 projects in 2014.
Created in 2009 by Yunus Centre and Grameen Creative Lab, the Global Social Business Summit has become the main platform for social businesses worldwide to encourage discussions, actions and collaborations in order to find effective solutions to crucial problems plaguing the world. [5]
Developing curricula for classes on social business. Amongst other, current partnerships exist with Harvard University, HEC (Paris), the Asian Institute of Technology (Bangkok), Bocconi University (Milan) McGill University (Montreal), Glasgow University, University of Florence and University of Salford.
Microcredit is the extension of very small loans (microloans) to impoverished borrowers who typically lack collateral, steady employment, and a verifiable credit history. It is designed to support entrepreneurship and alleviate poverty. Many recipients are illiterate, and therefore unable to complete paperwork required to get conventional loans. As of 2009 an estimated 74 million people held microloans that totaled US$38 billion. Grameen Bank reports that repayment success rates are between 95 and 98 percent. The first economist who had invented the idea of micro loans was Jonathan Swift in the 1720’s. Microcredit is part of microfinance, which provides a wider range of financial services, especially savings accounts, to the poor. Modern microcredit is generally considered to have originated with the Grameen Bank founded in Bangladesh in 1983. Many traditional banks subsequently introduced microcredit despite initial misgivings. The United Nations declared 2005 the International Year of Microcredit. As of 2012, microcredit is widely used in developing countries and is presented as having "enormous potential as a tool for poverty alleviation." Microcredit is a tool that can possibly be helpful to reduce feminization of poverty in developing countries.
Grameen Bank is a microfinance specialized community development bank founded in Bangladesh. It provides small loans to the impoverished without requiring collateral.
Muhammad Yunus is a Bangladeshi entrepreneur, banker, economist, politician, and civil society leader who has been serving as the Chief Adviser of the interim government of Bangladesh since 8 August 2024. Yunus was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for founding the Grameen Bank and pioneering the concepts of microcredit and microfinance. Yunus has received several other national and international honors, including the United States Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009 and the Congressional Gold Medal in 2010. Yunus is one of just seven individuals who have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, the United States Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the United States Congressional Gold Medal.
Social entrepreneurship is an approach by individuals, groups, start-up companies or entrepreneurs, in which they develop, fund and implement solutions to social, cultural, or environmental issues. This concept may be applied to a wide range of organizations, which vary in size, aims, and beliefs. For-profit entrepreneurs typically measure performance using business metrics like profit, revenues and increases in stock prices. Social entrepreneurs, however, are either non-profits, or they blend for-profit goals with generating a positive "return to society". Therefore, they use different metrics. Social entrepreneurship typically attempts to further broad social, cultural and environmental goals often associated with the voluntary sector in areas such as poverty alleviation, health care and community development.
Grameenphone, widely abbreviated as (d/b/a) GP, is a telecommunications service provider in Bangladesh. As of December 2023, its subscribers span over 82.20 million. It is a joint venture between Telenor and Grameen Telecom. Where Telenor owns a 55.8% share of Grameenphone, Grameen Telecom owns 34.2% and the remaining 10% is publicly held.
Banker to the Poor: Micro-Lending and the Battle Against World Poverty is an autobiography of 2006 Nobel Peace Prize Winner and Grameen Bank founder Muhammad Yunus. The book describes Yunus' early life, moving into his college years, and into his years as a professor at Chittagong University. While a professor at Chittagong University, Yunus began to take notice of the extreme poverty of the villagers around him. In 1976, Yunus incorporated the help of Maimuna Begum to collect data of people in Jobra who were living in poverty. Most of these impoverished people would take a loan from moneylenders to buy some raw material, using that raw material to create some product, and then selling back the good to the moneylender to repay the loan, earning a very meager profit. One woman interviewed made no more than two cents per day creating bamboo stools using this system. The list Begum brought back to Yunus named 42 women who were living on credit of 856 taka.
Social business was defined by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus and is described in his books.
Sajeeb Ahmed Wazed, also known as Sajeeb Wazed Joy, is a Bangladeshi businessman and politician. He is a member of the Bangladesh Awami League and served as advisor to the prime minister of Bangladesh on information and communication technology affairs.
Nagorik Shakti or Citizens' Power was a proposed political party in Bangladesh. It was conceived by 2006 Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus. Yunus communicated his ideas to the people of the nation and asked for feedback by writing a total of three letters addressed to the citizens in the prominent national daily The Daily Star. Yunus discontinued his venture in 2007 citing lack of interested eligible candidates.
Solidarity lending is a lending practice where small groups borrow collectively and group members encourage one another to repay. It is an important building block of microfinance.
Grameen Fund is a not-for-profit company in Bangladesh established by Muhammad Yunus to provide risk capital to small and medium enterprises (SME) beyond the scope of Grameen Bank's objectives of providing microcredit to the very poor. Incorporated on 17 January 1994, Grameen Fund started operation in February 1994, inheriting 40 projects of Grameen bank with assets of 391 million Bangladeshi taka investmented in small industries, fisheries and agriculture. Its lending capital is provided by Grameen Bank and other institutions like Calvert Foundation. From the first Calvert Foundation investment, approximately 6,000 permanent jobs have been created or maintained in agriculture, engineering, poultry, dairy, fishery, and handicrafts sectors.
The Grameen family of organizations has grown beyond Grameen Bank into a multi-faceted group of both commercial and non-profit ventures. It was first established by Muhammad Yunus, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning founder of Grameen Bank. Most of the organizations in the Grameen group have central offices at the Grameen Bank Complex in Mirpur, Dhaka, Bangladesh. The Grameen Bank started to diversify in the late 1980s when it began attending to unutilized or underutilized fishing ponds, as well as irrigation pumps like deep tubewells. In 1989, these diversified interests started growing into separate organizations, as the fisheries project became Grameen Fisheries Foundation and the irrigation project became Grameen Krishi Foundation.
Grameen Danone Foods, popularly known as Grameen Danone, is a social business enterprise, launched in 2006, which has been designed to provide children with many of the key nutrients that are typically missing from their diet in rural Bangladesh. It is run on 'No loss, No dividend' basis. Initially, Grameen Danone agreed to pay an annual dividend of one percent to shareholders, however, in December 2009, the board of Grameen Danone agreed to waive any monetary return.
Susan Davis is an author, public speaker, consultant and expert on international development and social entrepreneurship. She is the Chairperson of Solutions Journalism Network, an Adjunct Associate Professor at New York University Stern School of Business, a coach to social entrepreneurs and active on many boards and advisory councils.
Grameen America is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit microfinance organization based in New York City. It was founded by Nobel Peace Prize recipient Muhammad Yunus in 2008. Grameen America is run by former Avon Chairman and CEO Andrea Jung. The organization provides loans, savings programs, financial education, and credit establishment to women who live in poverty in the United States. All loans must be used to build small businesses.
Yunus Social Business (YSB) is an impact-first organisation with a non-profit impact-investing arm, Yunus Funds, and a corporate social-innovation consulting arm, Yunus Corporate Innovation. Both business units are based on furthering the concept of social business, as developed by YSB Co-founder and Chairman Professor Muhammad Yunus.
Narayana Multispeciality Hospital, Mysore is a unit of Narayana Health in Devanur, Mysore, India. It currently treats patients from the regions of South Karnataka, including services for cardiology and cardiac surgery, nephrology, urology, neurology and gastroenterology.
Nurjahan Begum is an advisor to the 2024 Bangladesh interim government.
Lamiya Morshed is a Bangladeshi social development professional, known for her work in the fields of microcredit and social business. In August 2024, she was appointed as the Principal Coordinator for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) at the Chief Adviser's Office in Bangladesh.