Opinion | Was Microcredit Really Muhammad Yunus’s Innovation? The REP Files Tell The Truth |
Dr Muhammad Yunus is known worldwide as the pioneer of microcredit and the founder of Grameen Bank. Most of his awards, starting with the Nobel Prize, have come for discovering the theory of microcredit and spreading it worldwide.
Would you believe me if I told you that Dr Muhammad Yunus was not actually the pioneer of microcredit, and that he was not even directly involved in it when this programme started in Jobra village adjacent to Chittagong University? Well, you don’t need to believe me. If a paper signed by Dr Yunus himself says this, would you believe it?
To know the history of microcredit and the beginning of Grameen Bank, we have to go back about 50 years. In 1976, a research programme called Rural Economic Programme (REP) was initiated by the Department of Economics of Chittagong University. The Ford Foundation provided a grant of $100,000 for this project for two years (November 1976 – November 1978). Although Dr Yunus was the head of the economics department at the time, the then Vice-Chancellor of Chittagong University, Professor Dr Abdul Karim, worked mainly for the Ford Foundation grant.
As an Action Research Project of this research programme, an initiative was taken to create a new era Tebhaga Farm project in Jobra village and jointly use a deep tube........