Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Yunus Spells Out Lessons For Bankers

Star Business Desk (The Daily Star)



Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus (C) speaks as Steve Gunderson (L), president and CEO, Council on Foundations and Rick Warren (R), Pastor, Saddleback Church listen, at the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) in New York on Friday. Photo: AFP

Yunus put forward the lesson to world leaders as he spoke at former US President Bill Clinton's global summit in New York on Friday amid unfolding woes of Wall Street giants collapsing one after another.

The three-day summit came to a close on Friday with Clinton's appreciation of microfinance investors who helped ``real people'' make a ``real rate of return'' in poor nations.

It was suggested that the financial giants look to the world's humblest lenders.

"We have to get out of this mindset that the rich will do the business and the poor will have the charity," said Yunus, founder of Grameen Bank, which provides small business loans to people who cannot get traditional loans.

The Clinton Global Initiative brought together global leaders to develop and then implement workable solutions to some of the world's most pressing challenges.

Yunus, the "banker to the poor," won the Nobel in 2006 for inspiring a global microfinance movement that has lifted millions out of poverty by granting tiny loans.

Unlike Wall Street, which is reeling from a flood of loans that may never be paid back, Grameen Bank has a recovery rate of more than 98 percent, according to media reports.

In his speech, Clinton cautioned against allowing the US financial crisis to undercut anti-poverty aid.

As congressional leaders try to hammer out a $700 billion bailout plan to buoy US financial markets, Clinton said lenders for small-scale businesses in impoverished nations were ``smart people'' making money with a ``real economy based on real people doing real things for a real rate of return".

Clinton unveiled 250 new commitments worth $8 billion and aimed at improving living conditions for about 158 million people as his annual conference ended in New York.

Interview : Spiegel Online

INTERVIEW WITH NOBEL LAUREATE MUHAMMAD YUNUS
'Capitalism Has Degenerated into a Casino' 10/10/2008

Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus says that greed has destroyed the world's financial system. SPIEGEL ONLINE spoke with him about the profit motive, social consciousness and what should be done to end the financial crisis.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Mr. Yunus, for years you have been preaching a more socially conscious way of doing business and have denounced the narrow focus on maximizing profit as harmful. Now, the entire financial system is wobbling ...
REUTERS
Muhammad Yunus says that profit should not be the only reason that businesses exist.
Yunus: The current turn of events makes me sad. It is certainly not something I am happy about. The collapse has hurt so many people and has suddenly made the entire world unstable. We should now be concentrating on making sure that such a financial crisis does not happen again.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: What should be done?
Yunus: There are huge holes in the current financial system that need to be plugged. The market is clearly not able to solve these problems itself, and now people are having to run to the governments to ask for emergency assistance. That is not a good sign because it shows that trust in the markets has evaporated. At the moment, there is unfortunately no other option than for government takeovers and government support. That is currently the method being used to combat the crisis -- a method kicked off with the $700 billion bailout package passed in the US. In Germany, the government has likewise jumped into the fray.
MUHAMMAD YUNUS
AP
Muhammad Yunus was born in Chittagong, Bangladesh in 1940. He was the third of 14 children in the well- off family of a jeweler. Yunus studied economics in Bangladesh and in the United States. He founded Grameen Bank in 1983 to provide microcredit to the poor so they could start their own small businesses. In 2006, he received the Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of his bank's achievements.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Where exactly do you see the problem with such a strategy?
Yunus: The point is that we have to return as soon as possible to market mechanisms that can ameliorate the crisis and solve problems. Solutions should come out of the market and not from governments.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: But you just said yourself that the market is not capable of doing so.
Yunus: That is exactly what we need to work on. For a long time, the main priorities have been the maximization of profits and rapid growth -- but that focus has led to the current situation. Each day, we have to look to see if there is potentially harmful growth somewhere. If we find there is, then we need to react immediately. If something grows unnaturally quickly, then we have to stop it. Why don’t companies all pay into a fund that buys up securities that have become too risky? I can even imagine a business model for such a program.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: On the one hand, you say that the market has to solve the problem itself, on the other hand, though, you criticize overly quick growth. That sounds like you think that profit-oriented capitalism has failed.
Yunus: Not at all. Capitalism, with all its market mechanisms, has to survive -- there is no question. What I excoriate is that today there is only one incentive for doing business, and that is the maximization of profits. But the incentive of doing social good must be included. There need to be many more companies whose primary aim is not that of earning the highest profits possible, but that of providing the greatest benefit possible for human kind.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: And you think that those two incentives are mutually exclusive? The bank you founded, Grameen Bank -- which led to your receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 -- both helps people and earns healthy profits.
Yunus: It is a company which is focused on the social good and which makes a profit, but it is not focused on maximizing its profits. I am not interested in turning all profit-oriented companies into socially conscious operations. They are two different categories of companies -- there will always be businesses whose primary goal is that of earning as much money as possible. That is okay. But earning as much money as possible can only be a means to an end, not an end in itself. One has to invest money in something meaningful -- and I would make a case for it being something that improves the quality of life for all people.
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SPIEGEL ONLINE: What, though, does an increase in the number of socially minded companies have to do with the financial crisis?
Yunus: Were there more socially minded companies, people would have more opportunities to shape their own lives. The markets would be more balanced than they are today.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: You are talking about saving the world with altruism ...
Yunus: There are many philanthropists in this world, people who help people by providing them with homes, education, etc. But that is a one-way street. The money is spent and never comes back. Were one to invest that money in a socially minded company, it would stay in the economy and would be much more effective because it would be used according to the criteria of the market and would thus develop a certain amount of market leverage.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Who do you think is guilty for the current financial meltdown?
Yunus: The market itself with its lack of adequate regulation. Today's capitalism has degenerated into a casino. The financial markets are propelled by greed. Speculation has reached catastrophic proportions. These are all things that have to end.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: The current financial crisis began as a credit crisis -- homeowners in the US could no longer pay down their mortgages. At Grameen Bank, which provides microloans, the repayment rate is close to 100 percent. Do you think your bank could be a model for the entire finance world?
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Yunus: The fundamental difference is that our business is very connected to the real economy. When we provide a loan of $200, that money will go to buy a cow somewhere. If we lend $100, someone will maybe buy some chickens. In other words, the money goes to something with concrete value. Finance and the real economy have to be connected. In the US, the financial system has completely split off from the real economy. Castles were built in the sky, and suddenly people realized that these castles don't exist at all. That was the point at which the financial system collapsed.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Is it now time for governments to intervene in the market economy and strengthen regulation?
Yunus: There has to be regulation, but governments should not be allowed to steer the market. On the other hand, it has become clear that Adam Smith's "invisible hand" which supposedly solves all the market's problems doesn't exist. This "invisible hand" has completely disappeared in the last few days. What we are experiencing is a dramatic failure of the markets.
Interview conducted by Hasnain Kazim. Translated from the German by Charles Hawley.

A Poverty Free World- When? How?

Romanes Lecture at Oxford University, held on December 2, 2008
A Poverty Free World- When? How?
Vice Chancellor Dr John Hood, members of the faculty, students, distinguished ladies and gentlemen :

I am very honored to be invited to deliver the Romanes Lecture at the world famous Sheldonian Theater at Oxford. It is indeed a privilege for me to become a part of this great, hundred- year old tradition at Oxford University. Thank you for inviting me here.
I have chosen today as the title of my speech "A Poverty Free World- When? How?" because I believe that not only is poverty the most pressing issue of our time, I also believe, at the same time, that it is a problem that we have fully the capacity to tackle and overcome within the first half of this century - if only we choose to do so.
I am a compulsive optimist as far as poverty is concerned. I am an optimist because I am convinced that poverty is not as difficult or complex an issue as we are constantly told it is. After all, poverty is about people. I have always said that the ingredients for ending poverty comes neatly packaged within each person. A human being is born in this world fully equipped not only to take care of him or herself, but also endowed with the ability to enlarge the well being of others in the world.

Why is it then that more than a billion people on the planet suffer through a life-time of misery and indignity, spending every moment of their lives looking for food for physical survival alone?



Poverty is not created by Poor People. poverty is not created by the poor people. Rather it is created by the economic and social system that we have designed for the world. It is created by the institutions that we have built, the concepts we have developed by the policies borne out of our reasoning and theoretical framework. In order to overcome poverty, we have to go back to the drawing board and redesign our concepts and institutions.

The Banking System

One major institution that needs to be redesigned is the financial institution. There is something fundamentally wrong with an institution that leaves out more than half the population of the world, because they are consider not credit worthy. This is what my work with Grameen Bank has been about, to design a banking method which can deliver the financial service to the people left out, particularly to the women, the most difficult to reach.

When I first started out and gave that 27 US$ to 42 families in that first village, I never imagined that I would one day create a bank, let alone that our efforts would grow to become a global movement to bring credit and financial services to poor people. When I got started I was trying to solve a local problem. I was shocked to learn that poor people are shackled because they do not have access to even a few dollars to invest or a grow a tiny income generating activity. That poor people were at the mercy of loan sharks in the village, who lent to the poor at exorbitant rates and then forced them to sell their goods to them at a price arbitrarily decided by them. This to me was a kind of slavery.

When I gave the first US$ 27, to try to free them from the clutches of the loan sharks, I didn’t know what would happen. Imagine my surprise when I saw the excitement that this created in them! It just made me want to do more of it. This is what led me to create Grameen Bank, after a long series of little steps. Grameen Bank has grown to become a nationwide bank. It has lent more than US$ 7.0 billion to 7.5 million people in Bangladesh. Our repayment rate is 98%. Our own internal survey show that our members are steadily crossing the poverty line every year, with 64 % of our borrowers, who have been with Grameen Bank for more than five years, have already crossed the poverty line. And now there are microcredit programs around the world, in nearly every country.

Capitalism and the Financial Crisis

Banks explain that poor people are not credit worthy. But the real question to ask is whether banks are people worthy. In the context of the total collapse of the financial system, this question becomes more relevant and urgent. We are still in the midst of the worst financial crisis of the century. In Grameen Bank there are no legal instruments between lender and borrower, no guarantees, no collateral. You can’t get riskier than that, and yet our money comes back while the prestigious banks all over the world are going down with all their intelligent paperwork, all their collateral, all the lawyers and legal systems to back up their lending. This contrast raises many questions in one’s mind.

In the last 50 years, capitalism has reigned supreme. Socialist economies have faded away and moved to capitalism. This has brought unprecedented wealth and prosperity to some countries and to some people. But billions are left out. In some places, the situation is getting worse and worse for those who are left out.

The financial crisis that has gripped the world economy illustrates the social failings of the existing capitalist system. It has been described in the media as casino capitalism or irresponsible capitalism. Credit markets were originally created to serve human needs—to provide business people with capital to start or expand companies and to enable families to buy homes. In return for these services, bankers and other lenders earned a reasonable profit. Everyone benefited. In recent years, however, the credit markets have been distorted by a relative handful of individuals and companies with a different goal in mind—to earn unrealistically high rates of return through clever feats of financial engineering. They repackaged mortgages and other loans into sophisticated instruments whose risk level and other characteristics were hidden or disguised. Then they sold and resold these instruments, earning a slice of profit on every transaction. All the while, investors eagerly bid up the prices, scrambling for unsustainable growth; and gambling that the underlying weakness of the system would never come to light.

With the collapse of the housing market in the United States, the whole house of cards has come down. Millions of people around the world who did nothing wrong are suffering. And the worst effects, as usual, will be felt by the poor. As economies falter, as government budgets collapse, and as contributions to charities and NGOs dwindle, efforts to help the poor will diminish. With the slowing down of economies everywhere, the poor will lose their jobs and income from self-employment.

Bailout cannot be relied on as solution to market problems. In the long-run, self-protection is possible only when market can ensure that it will not allow a crisis to develop in the first place.

I suggest a mechanism to buy all potential toxic assets on a daily basis through a business created by the participation of all businesses, which engage in highly speculative business and make high profits. I suggest that the market must be equipped with a strong mechanism to detect bubbles at the very initial stage and an instantaneous reaction device to shoot it down.

Everyday the market must hunt down the potential toxic assets and these must be bought off by a company created for this purposes. Capitalization of this company may be made from requiring companies to pay a percentage of gains made from highly speculative transactions at a progressive rate. Market must be developed as a self-correcting system. It cannot be left as a wild party of some money-hungry people, and organizations.

I believe we can tackle some of these challenges within the free market system of capitalism provided we design appropriate built-in mechanism to protect the system.

Capitalism is Half-Done Structure

Even if we can overcome the problem of financial crisis, we'll still be left with some fundamental questions about the effectiveness of capitalism in tackling many other unresolved problems In my view the theoretical framework of capitalism that is in practice today is a half-done structure.

The theory of capitalism holds that the marketplace is only for those who are interested in making money, for the people who are interested in profit only. This interpretation of human being in the theory treats people as one-dimensional beings. But people are multi dimensional. While they have their selfish dimensions at the same time they also have their selfless dimensions. Capitalism, and the marketplace that has grown up around the theory, makes no room for the selfless dimensions of the people. If some of the self sacrificing drives and motivations that exist in people could be brought into the business world to make impact on the problems that face the world, there would be very few problems that we could not solve.

Present structure of the economic theory does not allow these dimensions of people to play out in the market place. I argue that given the opportunity, people will come into the market place to express their selfless urges by running special types of businesses, let us call them social businesses, to make a change in the world. In the absence of such opportunity in the market place people express their selflessness through charities. Charitable efforts have been with us always, and they are noble, and they are needed. But we have seen that business is able, to innovate, to expand, to reach more and more people through the power of the free market. Imagine what we could achieve if talented entrepreneurs and business executives around the world devoted themselves in ending, say, malnutrition, without any intention to making money for themselves or the investors.

CSR vs Social Business

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is considered to be a part of company policy nowadays. CSR usually means let us make money, and then use part of that wealth to help society. This is an important development in the business world. But this still does not let business people to express their selfless urges within the framework of the market. Just as an individual person who makes money in business then gives away a part of his income into charity, similarly now a company, a legal person, does the same—make money and give part of it into charity.

I am proposing a different structure of the market itself; I am proposing a second type of business to operate in the same market along with the existing kind of profit maximizing business. I am not opposed to the existing type of business (although I call for many improvements in it like many others do.) I am proposing a new business in addition to the existing one. This new type of business I am calling “social business,” because it if for the collective benefit of others.

This is a business whose purpose is to address and solve social problems, not to make money for its investors. It is a non-loss non-dividend company. Investor can recoup his investment capital. Beyond that there is no profit to be taken out as dividends by the investors. These profits remain with the company and are used to expand its reach, improve the quality of the product or service it provides, and design methods to bring down the cost of the product or service. If the efficiency, the competitiveness, the dynamism of business could be harnessed to deal with specific social problems, the world would be a much better place.

The concept of a social business crystallized in my mind through my experience with Grameen companies. Over the years, Grameen created a series of companies to address different problems faced by the poor in Bangladesh. Whether it is a company to provide renewable energy or a company to provide healthcare or yet another company to provide information technology to the poor, we were always motivated by the need to address the social need. We always designed them as profitable companies, but only to ensure its sustainability so that the product or service could reach more and more of the poor - and on an ongoing basis. In all these cases the social need was the only consideration, making personal money was no consideration at all. That is how I realized that businesses could be built that way, from the ground up, around the specific social need, without motive for personal gain.

The idea of social business got a boost when we launched a joint venture with Danone. Grameen has teamed up with Danone to bring nutritious fortified yogurt to the undernourished children of rural Bangladesh. The aim of this social business is to fill the nutritional gap in the diet of these children. We sell the yogurt to the poor children to make the company self sustaining. Beyond the investment capital, neither Grameen nor Danone will make money from this venture, by agreement. We have one plant operating in Bangladesh, and we hope to have 50 such plants throughout the country.

We have built an eye care hospital on the social business principle. We have created a joint-venture with Veolia of France to deliver safe drinking water in the villages of Bangladesh. Under the company we are building a small water treatment plant in a rural part of Bangladesh to bring clean water to 100,000 villagers, in an area where existing supply of water is highly arsenic contaminated. We will sell the water at a very affordable price to the villagers to make the company sustainable, but no financial gain will come to Grameen or Veolia. Now more and more companies are coming forward to partner with us to set up new social businesses. We feel excited in creating a series of examples of social businesses, which, hopefully will encourage others to join in.

Some people are skeptical. Who will create these businesses? Who will run these businesses? I always say that, to begin with, there is no dearth of philanthropists in the world. People give away billions of dollars. Imagine if those billions could be used in a social business way to help people. These billions will be recycled again and again, and the social impact could be all that much more powerful. CSR money of the companies could easily go into social businesses. Each company can create its own range of social businesses.

Once the concept of social business is included in the economic theory, millions of people will come forward to invest in the social business because they all have those social dreams in their hearts. We will need to create social stock markets to channel these funds to appropriate social businesses.

Information Technology Can Help End Poverty

The other area where huge strides are being made is in the area of information technology. The advances being made are happening at such a rate that it is difficult to keep up. All manners of gadgets, devices are being created, making those that have come before obsolete in very short periods of time. Websites and online platforms are transforming the way we communicate, do business and interact with each other. The world is getting smaller, but only for those who can afford the technology, and for those who are trained to use it. Unless it is properly directed, the way these advances are taking place, it will go on to deepen the digital divide.

I have been arguing for years that technology could play a powerful role in closing the gaps between the rich and the poor, in a way that other things cannot do. If we could channel some of this brilliant creativity and innovation into creating IT solutions to the problems of the poor, we would succeed much more quickly in our race to end poverty. From e-healthcare and mobile phone banking to online market places to sell the products and services of the poor around the world, we are beginning to see what the possibilities are.

The future of poverty as I see it, will be decided by the technological devices and services that are designed a priori for poor people. These will be designed with their needs in mind, rather than those created for the well off and adapted for the poor. We have the technology, but we have to transform it into the digital genie for the poor.

A broad range of technology has a fundamental role to play in the current global food crisis that we are seeing today. The poor countries like Bangladesh are facing the brunt of this crisis. The shortage of food will wreak havoc in the lives of millions of the poor. As populations rise, their incomes and expectations rise, the global demand of food will continue to rise steadily. We need new technological revolution in agriculture, to ensure that we can have a much higher output of food, grown on the finite amount of land that is available to us. With all the advances taking place today, there is no question that we can come up with breakthroughs in agricultural production, in terms of both yield and quality.

It’s disheartening to see many of the world’s poorest falling back toward poverty just when we thought the planet was ready for a big step forward. We had thought food shortages were a thing of the past, but now they are back—not due to any lack of productive capacity on the part of the world’s farmers, and certainly not due to lack of effort by the farmers themselves, but due to forces that could have been averted—the economic crisis and the world’s failure to address the need to improve agricultural technology to increase yields. We have to focus our attention at the global level to tackle this great new challenge to the world’s poorest.

Globalisation

We live in a globalized world, for better or for worse. What we do in one part of the world has a direct impact on another. We are now connected and inter dependent in an unprecedented way. This can be a good thing, this can be a bad thing. Good waves spread quickly. So are the bad waves. Collapse of the financial system in the USA was immediately transmitted globally. The whole world now has to suffer for something which happened in the USA.

Wrong doings of the rich world impacts on the lives of the poor people very heavily. Blunders of the North can make lives in the South unsustainable.

The issue of climate change and how this will affect the earth, and how human beings will continue to survive on this planet is a very good example of this.

The world has many resources but much of it is non renewable. We have to understand that the patterns of our consumption, and the path to development that the world is taking could seriously endanger our future on this planet. The food crisis is in part caused by changes in climate patterns caused, scientists believe, due to global warming.

Bangladesh is singled out very often as a country that will be most affected, and most quickly, by the effects of climate change. As we all live in the same world, we have to understand that we all have to share this world with everyone today, and also with future generations.

There has to be a new approach.


It is up to your generation, the compassionate and creative young generation, to make a break with this past, and create a new future. We recognize how all of us, wherever we are in the world, are connected by a common fate and destiny in the natural world that we share.

Millennium Development Goals

We started the new millennium with grand hopes for a new world. In 2000, the world pledged in one voice to achieve the Millennium Development Goals.

The most important of those goals was the goal to reduce poverty by half by 2015. All the countries and peoples of the world agreed to these goals, the most bold, the most noble of goals ever set for mankind.

Bangladesh is an example of a country that has made tremendous progress towards the MDGs. The poverty rate has fallen from an estimated 74 percent in 1973 to 57 percent in 1991, to 49 percent in 2000, and then to 40 percent in 2005. Though still too high, it continues to fall by around 2 percent a year, with each percentage point representing a meaningful improvement in the lives of millions of Bangladeshis. The country is on track to achieve the Millennium Development Goal of reducing poverty by half in 2015. Even more remarkably, Bangladeshis rapid economic growth has been accompanied by little increase in inequality.

The sharp drop in poverty is reflected in changes in economic growth, employment patterns, and the structure of the economy. Growth has averaged 5.5 percent since 2000, while per-capita growth has increased to 3.5 percent currently. Population growth, major problem in Bangladesh, one of the most densely populated countries on earth has fallen sharply from an annual average of 3 percent in the 1970s to 1.5 percent in 2000. The decline in population growth has been driven, in large part, by improvements in health care. During the 1990s, the percentage of Bangladeshi mothers receiving prenatal health care doubled. Partly as a result, infant mortality rates in Bangladesh fell almost by half between 1990 and 2005.

Educational opportunities for children have also improved. The 1990s witnessed a tripling in the number of children attending secondary school. More girls now attend secondary schools than boys, a feat unmatched in South Asia and a remarkable achievement given the fact that, in the Bangladesh of the early 1990s, there were three times as many boys as girls in secondary schools.

The problems of poverty in Bangladesh, though improved, are far from being solved. Bangladesh is still one of the poorest countries in the world, with tens of millions of people living at a level barely above subsistence. But the social and economic trends are moving in the right direction.

Despite all the obstacles and difficulties Bangladesh has made great progress. If Bangladesh can do it, so can any other country. Bangladesh is a reason we should not abandon the MDGs. If we go village by village, city by city, district by district, country by country to achieve these goals, it can be done. I believe it can be done. We must all believe it can be done, and work hard with a commitment to achieve them all.

Poverty can be overcome the thought that always energizes me is that the poverty is not created by the poor people. Poverty is an artificial imposition on the people. Poor people are endowed with the same unlimited potential of creativity and energy that any human being in any station of life, anywhere in the world. It is a question of removing the barrier in front of the poor people to unleash their creativity to solve their problems. They can change their lives, only if we give them the same opportunity that we get. Creatively designed social businesses in all sectors can make this unleashing happen in the fastest way.

We are fortunate enough to have been born in an age of great ideas and great technologies. A lot will rely on your asking yourself "What use do you want to make of your creative talent?" Do you want to focus exclusively on making money by using your talent? If you must, go ahead; but while making money through profit maximizing businesses do make sure that your businesses make positive impact in people’s lives, at least, it does not make any negative impact. Alternatively, you could use some or all of your talent to change the world by harnessing the power of creative social businesses to address human and social needs? You can devote yourself exclusively to social business or do both types of businesses. Doing both is an attractive idea too. Making money through responsible profit-maximizing businesses could be the means, while using that money for social businesses could be the exciting end. The solutions to many of our world’s pressing problems could be accelerated through the creation of social businesses.

I always insist that poverty does not belong in civilized society. Poverty belongs only in the museum where our children and grandchildren can go to see what inhumanity people had to suffer, and where they will ask themselves how their ancestors allowed such a condition to persist for so long.

You the next generation, have to decide that poverty no more! We overcame slavery. We overcame apartheid. We have done other things that people once thought impossible. We have put persons on the moon, into space to explore far away worlds. We can overcome poverty, if only we decide that this does not belong to the world that you want to create. It is up to your generation to decide the world you choose to live in will not contain the scourge of poverty.

Press Release



Grameen Healthcare Trust and GE Healthcare announces partnership to explore social business healthcare delivery models for Bangladesh and other countries of the developing world
Partnership Supports Social Business Models To Help Address Health Needs Of 4 Billion People Around the World Who Live on Less Than a US$ 3 a day
Dhaka December 22, 2008 -- Grameen Healthcare Trust, a sister company of Grameen Bank , the pioneering micro-financing organization in Bangladesh that shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for its work to alleviate poverty and GE Healthcare, a unit of General Electric Company (NYSE: GE), today announced that they will work together to develop prototype of social businesses for healthcare delivery in Bangladesh, to be replicated in other countries of the developing world.

The partners will jointly evaluate ways to improve Grameen Healthcare Trust's existing healthcare delivery systems and primary care clinics in rural Bangladesh. At the end of an initial period, they will try to see if these social business model can be replicated in other countries, addressing the needs of the 4 billion people around the world whose income is less than US$ 3 a day.

During the next year, the partnership will focus on the following areas:

• Primary health promotion and disease prevention, the most cost effective steps in affordable health care

• Evaluate product, training, workflow, and other capabilities that would be needed for full deployment of ultrasound capability in rural areas

• Developing continuous training programs for nurses, technicians and physicians in the usage of ultrasound

• Reviewing operating efficiencies and scope of services (e.g., telemedicine, mobile health care) at Grameen's rural clinics.

Global Worries

January 30, 2009
Global Worries Over U.S. Stimulus Spending
By NELSON D. SCHWARTZ


Michel Euler/Associated Press



At Davos, Bill Clinton greets Muhammad Yunus, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate, with Tony Blair, Jet Li and Bill Gates.

DAVOS, Switzerland — Even as Congress looks for ways to expand President Obama’s $819 billion stimulus package, the rest of the world is wondering how Washington will pay for it all.

Few people attending the World Economic Forum question the need to kick-start America’s economy, the world’s largest, with a package that could reach $1 trillion over two years. But the long-term fallout from increased borrowing by the United Stated government, and its potential to drive up inflation and interest rates around the world, seems to getting more attention here than in Washington.


“The U.S. needs to show some proof they have a plan to get out of the fiscal problem,” said Ernesto Zedillo, the former Mexican president who helped steer his country through a financial crisis in 1994. “We, as developing countries, need to know we won’t be crowded out of the capital markets, which is already happening.”

Mr. Zedillo said that Washington, unlike most other countries, had the option of simply printing more money, because the dollar was a reserve currency for the rest of the world. Over the long run, that could force long-term interest rates higher and drive down the value of the dollar, undermining the benefits that come with its special status. Until now, most fears about surging government debt have focused on borrowing by European countries like Spain, Greece and especially Britain, which is also in the midst of a sizable bank bailout. That recently forced the British pound to a 23-year low against the dollar. While the dollar’s status as refuge in a time of turmoil should prevent that kind of sell-off for now, a number of financial specialists warned that if fundamental factors like the lack of American savings and bloated budget deficits did not change, the dollar could eventually fall sharply. “There aren’t that many safe havens,” said Alan S. Blinder, a Princeton economist who is a former vice chairman of the Federal Reserve in Washington, explaining why the dollar’s status as a reserve currency is unlikely to be threatened. Instead, it is the dollar’s long-term value against other currencies that is vulnerable. “At some point, there may be so much Treasury debt, that investors may start wondering if they are overloaded in dollar assets,” Mr. Blinder said.

While the focus in Washington has been on putting together a stimulus package that will attract broader political support when it comes up for a vote in the Senate, here in Davos the talk has been about the coming avalanche of Treasury debt needed to pay for the plan on top of the bailout measures approved last fall, like the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP. The stimulus was approved Wednesday by the House without Republican support, and could grow larger — mostly likely with additional tax cuts — to attract a bipartisan coalition.
American officials maintain they are aware of the challenge. A top White House adviser, Valerie Jarrett, promised in Davos on Thursday that once the stimulus plan achieved its intended affect, the United States would “restore fiscal responsibility and return to a sustainable economic path.” To be sure, Congress and the White House will ultimately need to refill the government’s coffers, but how they might do that is barely on the radar screen in Washington at this point.

“Even before Obama walked through the White House door, there were plans for $1 trillion of new debt,” said Niall Ferguson, a Harvard historian who has studied borrowing and its impact on national power. He now estimates that some $2.2 trillion in new government debt will be issued this year, assuming the stimulus plan is approved.

“You either crowd out other borrowers or you print money,” Mr. Ferguson added. “There is no way you can have $2.2 trillion in borrowing without influencing interest rates or inflation in the long-term.” Mr. Ferguson was particularly struck by the new borrowing because the roots of the current crisis lay in an excess of American debt at all levels, from homeowners to Wall Street banks. “This is a crisis of excessive debt, which reached 355 percent of American gross domestic product,” he said. “It cannot be solved with more debt.”

While Mr. Ferguson is a skeptic of the Keynesian thinking behind President Obama’s plan — rather than borrowing and spending to stimulate the economy, he favors corporate tax cuts — even supporters of the plan like Mr. Zedillo and Stephen Roach of Morgan Stanley have called on the White House to quickly address how it will pay for the spending in the long-term. “It’s huge,” Mr. Roach, the chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia, said. “President Obama has now laid out a scenario of multiyear, trillion-dollar deficits.”

The stimulus is widely expected to pass, but once it does, Mr. Roach said the focus would shift to “who foots the bill and what is the exit strategy. We don’t have the answer to either question.”
Mr. Zedillo, who remembers how Mexico was forced to tighten its belt when it received billions from Washington to keep its economy from collapsing in 1994, was even blunter.
“People are not stupid,” Mr. Zedillo said. “They see the huge deficit, the huge spending, and wonder what comes next.”


Alessandro Della Bella/European Pressphoto Agency
Ernesto Zedillo, the former president of Mexico.



Adam Berry/Bloomberg News

Tony Blair, the former British prime minister, speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Fears about surging government debt, once focused on Britain and other European countries, are now turning to the United States.

SOCIAL BUSINESSES ARE THE FUTURE

Nobel winner: 'Social businesses are the future' Muhammad Yunus tells Stanford students to explore the untapped energy and talent of just plain people around the world

by Chris Kenrick Palo Alto Online Staff

Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus urged Stanford students to use their talents to develop "social businesses" to solve pressing problems such as global warming, unemployment and poverty.

Yunus is famous for thinking small, but in a big way. He is a pioneer "micro-credit entrepreneur" whose Grameen Bank has 7.5 million impoverished borrowers with loans averaging less than $200 and a payback rate of 98 percent. He also focuses on silver linings: The world's economic crisis offers "an enormous opportunity" to design a fairer financial system, he said in a talk Friday at Stanford.

"Now it's a question: who's more creditworthy, the rich or the poor?" Yunus said, drawing laughs from the standing-room-only audience. "So why don't we create a financial system that's an inclusive system?"

Technology offers a powerful weapon against poverty, Yunus said. He urged technology-minded students to live among the people they seek to help before designing their "high-impact social ventures."

"Sometimes we think we're doing good things but you find out it's absolutely the wrong thing," he said. "So be there with the people, know what the problems are, what real intervention is needed and what impact it makes."

Yunus was introduced by George Shultz, former U.S. Secretary of State and Hoover Institution fellow, who called the micro-lending pioneer "one of the world's great human beings."

Shultz said he asked Yunus if he'd donned a white tie and tails to receive the 2006 Nobel Prize. Schultz said he responded, "No, I just wore what I always wear."

"He's his own man," Shultz said of Yunus, a Bangladeshi economist who wore a tunic and vest over his trousers at Stanford Friday.

Yunus made his first loan in 1976: $27 from his own pocket to 42 Bangladeshi village women,who he thought were being cheated by moneylenders. They made profitable use of the money and repaid it.

Women now comprise 97 percent of the bank's borrowers, Yunus said, because the bank has found that "money going to a family through women had much more impact on the family than money going through men."

Loans are given to individuals for income-generating activities they are familiar to the recipients, such as raising chickens, cows or vegetables, and making baskets or sewing clothes.

The bank encourages borrowers to send their children to school and offers scholarships to those who perform well.

Attempting to break the cycle of poverty, it also makes loans in housing and education and now has 32,000 students in higher education and professional schools, Yunus said.

This year, Grameen Bank opened a branch in Queens, New York, where Yunus said there are now 380 borrowers, all women, with average loan amounts of $2,200 without collateral and a 99.5 percent repayment rate.

"We follow the same procedures as in Bangladesh and when other things are collapsing it's as strong as ever."

New York borrowers have created businesses in areas such as child care, elder care, housecleaning and flower arranging.

"Today we're small, but if we can enlarge it to, say, 10,000 borrowers costs will be covered with an interest rate of 15 percent," Yunus said.

Grameen also makes interest-free loans to beggars in poor countries, he said. With average loans of $15, the bank encourages the beggars going house to house to carry cookies, candies or toys to sell, giving people the option to give money or buy something.

"More than 7,000 have stopped begging completely and the remaining 90,000 or so are part-time beggars, mixing begging and selling at the same time.

"It's an amazing experience to be of some help to a beggar," he said. "They're very smart -- they know which houses are good for begging and which are good for selling. They don't have to go to business school; they already know about market segmentation."

Yunus outlined numerous other Grameen ventures, including a hospital and a partnership with the French company Groupe Danone to produce low-cost yogurt containing nutrients Bangladeshi children are missing in their diet. Grameen also has partnered with a French water company, Veolia, to offer clean water in Bangladeshi villages at a price of a penny for 10 liters.

"People can bring their own container, take 10 liters and that's it," Yunus said. "If it works and pays back, then we can repeat it.

"Once you develop a prototype you develop a seed. Now multiply the seed and it can be everywhere.

"That's the challenge to young people in a school like Stanford -- to develop a social business, because that's where the future lies," Yunus said.

"We see every day how human beings are packed with unlimited capacity, unlimited potential. They're not helpless people; they're as capable as anyone else. It's that society never gave them an opportunity to unwrap that gift. It's a matter of removing the barrier.

"We have not allowed the bulk of the population on this planet to unleash their creativity and talents, and that is our loss," he said.

An interview with Nestle Company

Greetings!

Students from Miriam College, Quezon City of the CBEA (College of Business Entrepreneurship and Accountancy) Department were given a task to interview a business/firm that is involved with social Entrepreneurship. Thank you for your kind consideration!

1. Define social entrepreneurship
A social entrepreneur is someone who recognizes a social problem and uses entrepreneurial principles to organize, create, and manage a venture to make social change.

Social entrepreneurs often work through nonprofits and citizen groups, many works in the private and governmental sectors.

The main aim of a social enterprise is to further its social and environmental goals. This need not be incompatible with making a profit - but social enterprises are often non-profits. Social enterprises are for ‘more-than-profit’.

2. What are concrete examples that make your business involved in social entrepreneurship?

The future success of our Company, Nestle is linked to the success of farmers gaining access to developed country markets and to the economic and social progress of the consuming public as a whole. As a responsible global corporation, Nestlé seeks financial returns, while also working toward social and environmental gains.

Working side-by-side, with Health Organizations, Health centers, Doctors and Red Cross societies, Nestlé staff trained youth educators, who provided information to young people; and counselors, caregivers, to provide voluntary counseling and testing and other services.

3. In your opinion, will the Philippines benefit from social entrepreneurs?

Yes, there will be business opportunities, even in a country with dysfunctional politics and political leadership, can arise if the micro-environment encourages a convergence of capital, labor, and technology in a setting of mutual trust and benefit.

4. How can you prove that social business firms’ profits are used for common good?

In social enterprises profits are used to create more jobs and businesses to use for the common good. If you are off for emotional reasons, they will do everything they can to support you.

5. What are the characteristic of a social entrepreneur?

“A social entrepreneur is any person, in any sector, who uses earned income strategies to pursue a social objective, and a social entrepreneur differs from a traditional entrepreneur in two important ways:

  • Traditional entrepreneurs frequently act in a socially responsible manner: They donate money to nonprofits; they refuse to engage in certain types of businesses; they use environmentally safe materials and practices; they treat their employees with dignity and respect. Social entrepreneurs are different because their earned income strategies are tied directly to their mission: They either employ people who are developmentally disabled, chronically mentally ill, physically challenged, poverty stricken or otherwise disadvantaged; or they sell mission-driven products and services that have a direct impact on a specific social.

  • Secondly, traditional entrepreneurs are ultimately measured by financial results: The success or failure of their companies is determined by their ability to generate profits for their owners. On the other hand, social entrepreneurs are driven by a double bottom line, a virtual blend of financial and social returns. Profitability is still a goal, but it is not the only goal, and profits are re-invested in the mission rather than being distributed to shareholders.

Distinguishing characteristics:
a. Grounded in an understanding of entrepreneurship that defines entrepreneurs as individuals who start their own businesses”
b. Focused on the generation of “earned-income” to serve a social mission
c. “Sector-bending,” blurring the lines between the business and social sectors
d. Experimentation with market-based solutions to social problems that seek to align economic and social value creation
e. Differentiates between innovation and entrepreneurship

6. Tips and advice you can give for putting up business venture that involves Social Entrepreneurship

Here are some basic ideas on some of these items that might provide you a starting point:

1. Establish CONTRACTUALLY Recurring Revenue. Develop a new “product” that complements your business and requires users to pay a monthly or annual rental, licensing, maintenance, or warranty fee. Start offering this product so you will be ahead of your competitors when sales pick up again.
2. Overcome the High Barriers to Entry. Now that you have time:
a. Do testing that qualifies you to get certain customers
b. Get a new license or certification that gives you more exclusivity
c. Add a new process that makes your product greater
d. Work on developing and patenting new intellectual property
3. Build a Great Website. These days, a website may be the first thing people see when they want to learn about your company. Make your first impression the best possible. Building an effective website takes a lot of your time to develop content, pictures, etc. So do it now if you don’t already have a great website.
4. Build a Management Team. Even though cash may be limited now, start small. With the management pool growing recently, find someone to handle more of your duties and test their capabilities and train them during this slower period.
5. Become an Expert in Your Industry. Being an expert is not as easy as knowing a lot. You have to make sure people know that you do know a lot. Writing press releases, writing blogs, calling editors and other industry leaders takes time. So why not do it now?
6. Find Simple Ways to Innovate. Get your sales people, technical people, and management together and brainstorm market needs and appropriate solutions for your customer base. Have one of your sales guys that may be low on work lead the project.
7. Diversify Your Product Mix. Integrate! Whether horizontally or vertically, why not use your existing fixed costs to increase your sales when the market picks back up or maybe even get back to your old revenue values right now with new products.

Monday, February 9, 2009

Photobucket

Reflection paper for Social Entrepreneurship articles and the life and works Muhammad Yunus
By: Micah Garcia Alvarado

Social entrepreneurship is attracting growing amounts of talent, money, and attention. But along with its increasing popularity has come less certainty about what exactly a social entrepreneur is and does. I’ve come across this term rarely and entrepreneurs globally had given vague definitions regarding to what it really entails.

The Philippines has rampant and numerous maturing entrepreneurs that have been helping the economy rise from its stagnant state since the end of martial law. We have to recognize that it is never too early to dream big and take action. Once a great innovative idea has been brought up, it should be nourished. Social Entrepreneurship in the Philippines is institutions that consoles young entrepreneurs in their business venture. An example of this is the Philippine Youth Business Foundation (PYBF) which caters which caters capital loan providing a start up funds from P15, 000 to P200, 000 to deserving would-be entrepreneurs between the ages 18 and 30 who have clear business ideas. Junior Association of the Philippines Institute (JAPI) is also a non profit firm that was established by multibillion corporations such as Petron and Smart which brought student entrepreneurs nationwide including Miriam College has sought out to train business leaders and movers in the society. This particular program entails 12 to 30 students with a professional mentor which they will be producing a unique or premium service/ product that shall be distributed to the market.

I am proud to say that Filipinos are challenged to survive in an economy with uprising unemployment and inflation but we could cope up with these circumstances as we’ve always been an independent nation.

Muhammad Yunus is a philosophical and ethical person. I believe that the only difference he has with other entrepreneurs is his dreams for the world as a whole and not solely for one’s gain. Although monetary terms is important in the life cycle of a product/service, He believes that it is the absolute end of a person is the ultimate goal in life thus this objective lead people to recognize His purest intentions and so his firm grew. Profit was not his ultimate purpose but to be of service. I can see the millions of people affected by the Grameen Bank for entrepreneurs in Bangladesh.

I was very fond of the article: Rags in Fashion, which was for the purpose of helping “payatas” woman gain profit from what disposable income they have left from making rags. In collaboration with Ralph Laurel, a top Asian fashion designer has prompted buyers from higher class societies. The event explicated the needs to be socially aware that there are people suffering around us and it would be a shame as to do nothing while we have the resources and influence. I want to encourage these types of activities that will help people who are financially challenged that they may be given opportunities because that alone is enough. We are able to interact with our people. Not only does this generate profit but it has an absolute end of helping others in need.

Reflection by Jenalyn Dominguez

“Change has a considerable psychological impact on the human mind. To the fearful it is threatening because it means that things may get worse. To the hopeful it is encouraging because things may get better. To the confident it is inspiring because the challenge exists to make things better.” –King Whitney Jr.

We are all aware that the onset of global financial and economic turmoil now only proves that the world is experiencing a worsening crisis. The number of the jobless and underemployed has been increasing tremendously. Thus, leading only to one controversial subject in the society, which is poverty.

Poverty, being both natural phenomenon and the product of human act is being felt, measured, defined and demonstrated in the environment. It greatly affects people being “it” as a social menace.

It is a great relief though that just having the mere thought, there are still fiery enthusiasts of hope and confidence. It shows in the life of Mr. Muhammad Yunus, a social entrepreneur, situations could get better soon.

Plainly understanding why poverty exists is difficult that is why it takes one ambitious man with one ambitious goal of eradicating poverty to step up and make a change. So many of the world’s citizens live in poverty that is why Mr. Muhammad Yunus being a contemporary social entrepreneur is a perfect role model for recognizing a big social problem that made him organize, create and manage a successful venture--- Grameen Bank.

I can say that I am completely arranged by Mr. Yunus’ strong vision and focus to make a social change. His selfless existence manifests that his social initiative leads to a noble cause. His works impact the society for he paved way to help the poorest of the poor and empowering women to achieve a world without poverty. His optimism moulded him to have a brave heart to face the fearful risks of his micro-finance. I strongly agree to his belief to empower women because society benefits when women are supported and empowered since they perform an unremarkable role in the family, which constitutes the basic unit of the society. His discovery of lending small loans to poor people really make a difference. It is indeed a noble act to lend those who have nothing.

Give chance, build opportunities, be selfless, for progress and success can be achieved if people work together.

Social entrepreneurs like Mr. Yunus have a great responsibility to perform in the society most especially today. We need more entrepreneurs who have innovative solutions, brilliant ideas towards a wide-scale change. Entrepreneurs, who have the initiative to take time and observe what doesn’t work, take the guts to change the system and help spread the solution for the economy to leap forward. Focus on the less fortunate who have been left behind rather than thinking of yourself getting at the peak of success because it would be a worthless contribution to the society. If most of us would just stand-up seize the idea and work on it to become reality, then most of us would also be role models who can prove that citizens who channel passion into action can do almost anything even alleviating poverty towards successful economic rebirth.

Reflection by Realthea Andrea Ruiz

I didn’t know what “social entrepreneurship” is when I first heard of it. I didn’t even know that something actually exists. But when I get to learn more about it, it kind of hit me why not create a business that primarily helps those in need, especially the financially challenged individuals or families. Like those businesses of Muhammad Yunus and Michael Young which mainly give a hand to the poor by lending money for them to be able to establish businesses of their own.

It’s inspiring to know that there are persons who do such help for people not just in their community and country, but even across the globe. Then it suddenly crossed my mind if social entrepreneurship just recently began or it started way back. Maybe, this thing is not new, but it only became useful today due to number of unfortunate events happening to people around the world, like unending wars and nonstop corruption which continuously degrade and/or destroy the quality of life and living of most.

It’s hard to help all those who are in need in the whole world. I suggest that ALL businesses that are going to be established should atleast contribute a part of their earnings or products/programs to indigenous people. With this, a lot of funds are raised that could really help change lives of many.

A Helping Hand

A Blogsite Reflection by Donna B. Fresco

A lot has happened in our country for the past decade. Most of what happened in our country involved corruption, political killings, constant increase in prices and many more. I never really understood why it’s hard to change what we used to live by. It’s like turning back to a bad habit. Many are hopeless while some are still waiting for The Perfect President. Wanting to be saved. Wanting to be lifted up from poverty.

It’s heartbreaking that we can’t start the change in us. It disappoints me much to see that many people DEMAND for change and yet, they still live by their old lifestyle, their old habits. I mean, you can’t expect change if your not willing to be part of it, if your not willing to move your feet and start a step.

Being part of this project has inspired me a lot as a future entrepreneur. From the life of Muhammad Yunus who willingly created hope for a lot of people to the social entrepreneurs who became different kinds of help to different kinds of people.

Today, it made me realize how hard really it is for someone to start adapting to change. There’s uncertainty, there’s a risk you have to make. And for a lot of people, especially the poor, they don’t have enough and they can’t afford to lose it. I realized that I am blessed by God not just financially or materially. He blessed me with a heart to reach out to people and be of great help. At this young age, I may not be able to do the same thing Muhammad Yunus or the other social entrepreneurs have done. But still, there’s a desire within me to make the lives of other people comfortable. As a future entrepreneur, I can help them by providing jobs and benefits they deserve.

All of these won’t be easy. But, if we really have the desire to help and reach out to those who are in need, nothing is impossible. In our own ways, we can always bring out our helping hands. I would like to share this quote that inspired me most. Hope you’ll also take time to reflect on it.

“Live simply that others might simply live.” ~Elizabeth Seaton

Reflection by Monica Jane Medina

Our blog site high lights everything about Muhammad Yunus and his wonderful business. We also tackled the success of Famous Social Businesses in our country. The blog posts are really inspirational especially to young entrepreneurs like us. It showed us how hard work can payoff in any aspect in life.

The articles about Muhammad Yunus are very educational and inspirational. I learned that even if it’s impossible in our world today, there can still be people out there who are willing to help others without anything in return. I think young entrepreneurs should look up to Muhammad Yunus and follow his footsteps so that the unemployment rate would lessen in our country.
The Social Entreprenuers inspired me to help or donate to others the blessing I will have in the future. It taught me a very good lesson in life that not everything in can be bought by money. I can say that our country has a great potential to be successful if just help each other.

Reflection by Kristine Sheryl L. Quarte

I believe Professor Muhammad Yunus’ Grameen Bank is very inspirational to me as an Entrepreneurship student of Miriam College, as well as a student who’s currently studying microeconomics. First and foremost, unlike other businesses, his bank is mainly concerned with helping out the less fortunate, especially women. As a Miriam student, I can say that I am very much grateful that Professor Yunus wants to empower women. This can encourage other women in different parts of the world that women can also do great in business, and that poverty is not an impediment for people to be successful. Starting with a small business can be a stepping stone for anyone who is aspiring to give his or her family a better life. People like Professor Muhammad Yunus can encourage and uplift the spirits of the underprivileged. Most of them think that they are just stuck to where they are now, but with the creation of Grameen Bank, I can say that people can choose to go somewhere better. I believe it takes much sympathy and concern for someone to do something as great as what Professor Muhammad Yunus. He set profit aside and opt to lend a hand to the unfortunate. He didn’t just help the poor, but his country as well. With lending money to the unfortunate who wanted to create business, he also helped the economy. As a business, the Grameen Bank is also interested in making profit, but not maximizing profit. It mainly aims to help, not to gain much at the expense of others. I believe business people always had the responsibility to provide better living to their customers and employees.

Thursday, February 5, 2009

muhammad yunus



Professor Muhammad Yunus established the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh in 1983, fueled by the belief that credit is a fundamental human right. His objective was to help poor people escape from poverty by providing loans on terms suitable to them and by teaching them a few sound financial principles so they could help themselves.

From Dr. Yunus' personal loan of small amounts of money to destitute basketweavers in Bangladesh in the mid-70s, the Grameen Bank has advanced to the forefront of a burgeoning world movement toward eradicating poverty through microlending. Replicas of the Grameen Bank model operate in more than 100 countries worldwide.

Born in 1940 in the seaport city of Chittagong, Professor Yunus studied at Dhaka University in Bangladesh, then received a Fulbright scholarship to study economics at Vanderbilt University. He received his Ph.D. in economics from Vanderbilt in 1969 and the following year became an assistant professor of economics at Middle Tennessee State University. Returning to Bangladesh, Yunus headed the economics department at Chittagong University.

From 1993 to 1995, Professor Yunus was a member of the International Advisory Group for the Fourth World Conference on Women, a post to which he was appointed by the UN secretary general. He has served on the Global Commission of Women's Health, the Advisory Council for Sustainable Economic Development and the UN Expert Group on Women and Finance.

Professor Yunus is the recipient of numerous international awards for his ideas and endeavors, including the Mohamed Shabdeen Award for Science (1993), Sri Lanka; Humanitarian Award (1993), CARE, USA; World Food Prize (1994), World Food Prize Foundation, USA; lndependence Day Award (1987), Bangladesh's highest award; King Hussein Humanitarian Leadership Award (2000), King Hussien Foundation, Jordan; Volvo Environment Prize (2003), Volvo Environment Prize Foundation, Sweden; Nikkei Asia Prize for Regional Growth (2004), Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Japan; Franklin D. Roosevelt Freedom Award (2006), Roosevelt Institute of The Netherlands; and the Seoul Peace Prize (2006), Seoul Peace Prize Cultural Foundation, Seoul, Korea. He is a member of the board of the United Nations Foundation.

Savvy Art Gallery: Business venture by 3rd yr BS Entrepreneur Students of Miriam College



Mission/Vision Statement:

Savvy art Gallery provides a venue where contemporary Filipino student artists can showcase their masterpieces. It is also intended to show Filipinos as the general public/ audience a new and fresh perspective of modern Filipino art.

Savvy Art Gallery aims to be acknowledged as the first to envision and promote the welfare of the young Filipino artists.

Executive Summary:

Savvy Art Gallery is all about giving opportunities and a new sense of endeavor to selected Filipino student artists ages 12 to 25.

Apparently the art scene always has a connotation of being “indigenous” therefore the gallery’s goal is to influence the perspective on how Filipinos view modernism. Filipinos are naturally expressive people and Savvy Gallery aims to expose and provide them with the suitable exhibit for the recognition of their masterpiece. The future impressionists and renaissance masters of the new generation of contemporary art can finally be recognized.



Staff includes:
Micah Alvarado: General Manager
Ivana Tan: Fiannce Manager
Francine Ongchangco: Treasury
Sarah Ventura: Maketing Manager
Natasha Cuevas: Marketing Manager
Anna Patricia Noemi Cortes: Internal Operations Manager
Maricon Mojica: External Operations Manager