--- title: 10 Questions for Muhammad Yunus | TIME description: The Nobel Prize – winning guru of microcredit believes in a poverty-free world. Muhammad Yunus will now take your questions canonical: https://time.com/video/P0CkAvM8/ og:title: 10 Questions for Muhammad Yunus og:description: The Nobel Prize – winning guru of microcredit believes in a poverty-free world. Muhammad Yunus will now take your questions og:url: https://time.com/video/P0CkAvM8/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/P0CkAvM8/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: 10 Questions for Muhammad Yunus twitter:description: The Nobel Prize – winning guru of microcredit believes in a poverty-free world. Muhammad Yunus will now take your questions twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/P0CkAvM8/poster.jpg?width=720 --- # 10 Questions for Muhammad Yunus > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: 10 Questions for Muhammad Yunus [Watch (HLS stream): 10 Questions for Muhammad Yunus](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/P0CkAvM8.m3u8) (6:10)  _Published 2009-09-22. The Nobel Prize – winning guru of microcredit believes in a poverty-free world. Muhammad Yunus will now take your questions_ --- Jul 27, 2023 1:14 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [Nobel Laureate Yunus Cleared in Graft Case After Becoming Bangladesh Leader](/video/zlCanZ8I/) ### Nobel Laureate Yunus Cleared in Graft Case After Becoming Bangladesh Leader [3 Economists Win Nobel Prize for Work On 'Alleviating Global Poverty'](/video/pqu3a375/) ### 3 Economists Win Nobel Prize for Work On 'Alleviating Global Poverty' [10 Questions for Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman](/video/IrRkXE2M/) ### 10 Questions for Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman --- ## Transcript >> I'm Bobby Ghosh with Time Magazine. We are in Time Magazine's Washington Bureau with Professor Muhammad Yunus, the founder of Grameen Bank, Nobel Peace Prize winner in 2006, and as of last week, winner of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Thank you very much for joining us. >> Thank you. >> This is a question that goes maybe to your roots a little bit. It comes from Sebastian Gunorhumbag in Vienna, Austria, and he asks, " Where did the idea of microcredit come to you ?" >> It was circumstances in which I was in. I had no idea about lend money. That was not my profession. I was a teacher. I was a professor of Economics. But Bangladesh was going through a terrible famine in 1974- 1975 and people are dying. So I said about forget about textbook economics, why don't I go with the people in the village next door to the campus and see if I can be of some help to some people. And along the way, I saw how the loan sharking was going on in the village. So I made a list of people who were borrowing from the loan sharks. When my list was complete, there are 42 names on that list, and the total money they borrowed was 27 dollars. I said, " My God, for such a small money, they have to suffer so much ." So what I did, I lent this 27 dollars to 42 people to return the money to the loan sharks so that they get freed. And they were so excited, so I wanted to continue with that and went to the bank to connect them with the bank and that they should borrow money from the bank rather than from the loan sharks. Banks said they cannot lend out. They cannot lend money to the poor people. So finally, I solved it by offering myself as a guarantor and if they don't pay back, I'll pay back, and that was the beginning. So it's just step by step. At that time, I was not thinking about big micro- nothing, just solved a local problem that was right there. >> Do you think the same model of microlending that was so successful in Bangladesh can be applied elsewhere? Or would it require a thorough customization to fit every society? >> Today, Grameen programs are everywhere in the world. I mean hardly any number of countries is spared from that. We work in all varieties of companies. We work in African countries, European countries, even in the USA. We have a program right here in New York City and it works beautifully and we brought the same system. What we do in villages of Bangladesh, we do it exactly the same way in city of New York. So we have not changed anything in that sense. Some slight variation took place in very special regions like in Kosovo because of the snow and instead of weekly payment, we got a fortnightly payment. That's all the change we have. And we have 2 months of closed down of our business because movement becomes impossible. So those are natural reasons not because of anything else. >> From Tacoma, Washington, [ unk ] asks, " Was there ever a time you thought that the Grameen Bank might not happen? How did you overcome such obstacles ?" >> People have been telling us right from day 1 that they don't work, they don't work, they don't work. So we kind of ignored the predictions people are making. It's impossible. It just doesn't make sense. It will collapse any day. And we are totally confident. There is no reason why it should collapse, so we continued to do that. >> The microfinancing programs undertaken in Bangladesh have been highly successful in empowering women. Do these financial programs reflect a cultural shift already underway? Or are they driving the change? >> The most dramatic thing that happened in Bangladesh in this last 25 years is a total change in the empowerment of women, the status of the women, the way women take their life and the way they integrate with the society. I'm not saying that everything has happened because of microcredit, but microcredit definitely played a role in particularly their poor women to change their status. >> Hassan Igbal in Sundsvall, Sweden, asks, " Do you think it is ethical to charge the poor with high interest rates and make a profit out of it? Have you ever thought of lowering it ?" >> It depends what you mean by high, what do you mean by low. Bank microcredit is a big program in Bangladesh. Grameen Bank is one part of a large microcredit program and in Bangladesh, Grameen Bank charges the lowest rate among all microcredits in Bangladesh. So that way, it's the lowest. And other parts is, yes, we make profit. Grameen Bank is owned by the borrowers. So when we make profit, profit goes back to the borrowers, the shareholders, as dividends. So, it's a money going back to them- >> It's reverse to a circle. >> Exactly, it's a reverse to a circle. >> From Princeton, New Jersey, Sam Daly Harris asks, " If you are elected head of the World Bank or USAID, what would you do differently ?" >> I will transform it into social business and I've been telling the president of World Bank, you have profit- maximizing business. You have the government, which receives the money from the World Bank. Have a third window where you lend money or invest money in social business. >> Louis Holly asks, " As ordinary individuals, what is the most effective thing we can do to help consign poverty to museums ?" >> Many things. Generating awareness in the society that this is important and make people believe- like you believe- make people believe that, yes, we can send poverty to museums. Then, there are procedures. There are steps how to go to that and one is very clearly demonstrated by adopting the millennium goal # 1, reducing poverty by half by 2015. If we can do that, if we can achieve reducing poverty by half by 2015, getting it to zero is just one more step. >> Thank you very much Professor Yunus. >> Thank you. ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"10 Questions for Muhammad Yunus","description":"The Nobel Prize – winning guru of microcredit believes in a poverty-free world. Muhammad Yunus will now take your questions","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/P0CkAvM8/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2009-09-22T14:19:29.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/P0CkAvM8.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/video/P0CkAvM8/","duration":"PT6M10S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/video/P0CkAvM8/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}} ```