2008-07-21 brilliant man, some interesting ideas, not life changing

Muhammad Yunus is obviously a brilliant man and the work he has been involved with in Bangladesh is impressive. I was familiar with his work with Grameen Bank before I read this book but had not read any of his other books.

This book is written in an easy to read style and is mostly Yunus' personal manifesto for ending poverty in the world. I suspect if you have read his other book then there will be quite a lot of repetition in this one.

The book seems to be mostly based around four themes.

1. The Grameen Bannk and related companies and their success (mainly) as a tool to empower poor women and allow them and their families to escape poverty in Bangladesh.

2. Some ideas for his models of 'social businesses' no-loss, no-dividend which operate with own stock market, investors guaranteed start up money back but no profit, ideally long term ownership by the poor communities served. He emphasises the limitations of profit maximising companies to meet all the needs of humans in terms of our desire to do good.

3. One example of a social business set up between Grameen and Danone.

4. Various other factors on Yunus' wish list of solving world problems and the requirements for international regulation and consensus as well as local 'social forum' solutions.

There are some interesting ideas and Yunus probably has the energy and vision to see some of them realised. I did not find them as ground breaking and life changing as I kind of expected from other reviews I'd read.

The one element that I found very useful was the 'Sixteen Decisions' that Grameen borrowers have to commit to. These 16 factors are used to measure whether a family is poor or not or has moved out of poverty. None of them had specific monetary values but instead included the following:

-We shall grow vegetables all year round. We shall eat plenty of them and sell the surplus.
-We shall build and use pit latrines

Also judging poverty by factors such as if people still slept directly on a mud floor or not.

Worth reading. A little too much repetition. Perhaps a little too idealistic - although his works probably mean I shouldn't say that. Have read better development books. Although perhaps this is more a treatise on the limitations of current economic theory for layman than a development book.