Help for the hand that rocks the cradle

There is a strong hint of Confucian communitarianism laced with the moralism of Samuel Smiles - the Victorian author of worthy tracts like Self-Help and Thrift - about the Bangladeshi Grameen (Village) Bank's four principles and 16 disciplines. By awarding the Nobel Peace prize to the bank and its founder, Muhammad Yunus, the Norwegian Academy has gone beyond political friction to identify economic discontent as the main determinant of war and peace.

In focusing on women's development, Grameen acts on the principle that the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world. Women make up 97 per cent of its nearly 7 million borrowers. The rationale is that female empowerment will aid productivity, the environment, health, family planning and other factors in societal advance.

Using women as its principal tool, Grameen hopes to end poverty by 2015. It is an ambitious aspiration but not an insuperable one in a country that already boasts significant achievements in human development.

Bangladesh was born in the carnage of the 1971 India-Pakistan war. It was devastated by famine only three years later. But one of the few benefits of Pakistani rule was a multidisciplinary agricultural experiment housed in impressive buildings in the eastern town of Comilla. Its pioneering rural work may have helped to create a conducive climate for Professor Yunus. The 1974 famine also underlined the need for an apolitical collective thrust to eradicate poverty.

Professor Yunus, a former Fulbright scholar who then taught rural economics at Chittagong University, provided a small loan of 50 Bangladeshi takas (HK$6) to a woman, from a nearby village, who made bamboo furniture. It rescued her from the clutches of a moneylender who charged interest at 10 per cent per day. Freed of that interest burden, she could buy raw bamboo, give full play to her skills and stand on her own feet.

Thus was born a pioneering scheme to use microcredit as a cost-effective weapon to fight poverty, generate a sense of self-esteem, especially among rural women, and act as a catalyst for growth. The bank now has more than 24 subsidiary organisations and 2,000 branches in 71,371 villages.