more details soon -in phone call to DanoneCommuniities last week next invitations to 3000 youth events of danonecommunities are March 22 and April 22

yunusdiary is co-sponsored by YunusBook, DevelopingSocialBusiness, LondonCreativeLabs & IsabellaWM.com

here are some of my replies to the debrief Q&A
 http://danonecommunities.com/fr/generationsolidairefeedback
of the 3000 youth event hosted by danone communities and HEC at the Grand Rex Paris 4 Feb 2010 - uncensored text questions from youth with respondents in chief on the stage that included Dr Yunus, Martin Hirsch, Frederick Dalsace chair of social business at HEC and an extraordinary lady from the commission of audiovisuel

love to know if the people on stage knew what texts they were going to get; in a way I would rather that they did!
 

do you think that a text jam can be held independently of having a meeting - ie could the best of a text jam be saved for times when big meetings are convened but also webbed before and afrer; could youth in different cities around the world be involved in a text web knowing that some of the questions would be posed the next time a danone 3000 is convened anywhere

could liberation or other journalists start using some of the text questions in other interviews they make;  tv broadcasters that are funded by the public should one day include such "live" texts at the same time as leaders are intreviewed in the nighly news on such topics as job creation and who is banking for; we do not live in a democracy or a free market globe if politicians or lobbyists censor what questions they are prepared to be asked or if anchor men are too scared about their own power relationship than asking whole truth questions; bring on the social business anchor women http://www.sbworld.tv http://myworlds.tv http://202020.tv

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the decade that must change climate if my daugter's children are to have an earth hasn't begun that well with dirsuptions at our favorite microenergy epicentre http://www.gshakti.org - please permit us to retell one of our favourite dipal barua stories

1/100 SB stories: 2010s Joy of Collaboration in Sustainability

1/100 ABOUT THE ROYAL ETIQUETTE ON LAUGHTER

Have you ever seen the Queen of England burst out laughing? A huge smile of pride and approval yes, but to go beyond the superhuman pomp and dignity that is demanded by the English class system and global mass media - to transform for a few seconds from head of state to the temporary human bliss that is losing control to a few seconds of pure laughter?

I ask because there is a rumor that once when Prince Charles met a director of Grameen Bank – his brief conversation turned into pure laughter. And in my daughter's worldwide diary of Yes We Cans, there is hope for sustainability of all peoples if he did.

The story goes that the third time Charles met a director of Grameen Bank it was with the company’s number 2 man Dipal Barua. Charles was awarding him a grand prize http://ashdenawards.org   for services to solar energy. The conversation went something like this:

Charles: Is it true that your company installs more solar units that the whole of the USA? Dipal: sir, Yes.

Charles: but is it also true that you are a bank? Dipal: sir Yes

Charles: but banking and solar energy , how,,, Dipal: ...we are Bankers for the Poor so it is only natural!

Laughter!!

When Dipal told this story he was modestly admitting surprise at how much his repartee had been enjoyed. My job creation journalist friends had spent an hour videoing his kindly explaonations and belief that the micro-solar Social Business system his project team had spent 12 years developing is ready for exponential liftoff

Dipal's turn of the decade goal is to create 100000 green jobs for semi-literate village women in Bangladesh this side of London’s Sustainability Olympics 2012. My co-journalist Sofia Bustamante     of http://londoncreativelabs.com   , whom I have ever since dubbed first anchor woman of social business http://sbworld.tv , had nudged Dipal at the end of the interview to sharing his favourite personal story. 

Now, I am delighted if Charles’ spontaneous combustion was stimulated by Dipal who is equally as charming company as the other happy bankers Mrs Begum, Professor Latifee and Dr Yunus who co-founded Grameen from a $27 sustainability investment made in 1976. However, there may be a second way of construing this climactic royal joy.

This was probably Charles third close encounter with the worldwide's most economical system design called Grameen Bank. The other two occasions he had identified with the redoubtable Muhammad Yunus: first when Charles wrote a foreword to Dr Yunus’ book “Banker for the Poor”, second when Prince Charles' Foundation had asked to meet Dr Yunus while he was in Europe receiving his Nobel Prize in 2006.

The idea that the Nobel Prize had been awarded for the win-win-win of peace, and banking, and Prince Charles special interest renewable energy was just too much for a human being to celebrate - with anything other than pure laughter.

From this month the city of Paris (one of the richest in the world) is covering all its quarters to provide microcredits to the needy through one of the oldest banks of the city, Credit Municipal. The number of poor people needing help in the city has increased by a third during the last one year and is increasing further due to the recent global recession.

A monetary measure of poverty is of course relative. The items to be financed with the microcredit in a developed economy (per capita income over $32,000) and in a developing economy (per capita income, say, $1,000), could also be quite different. In Bangladesh for example it is perhaps a loan to buy a goat or a mobile phone for renting, to a lady in a village; in Paris it is a loan to buy a computer for a young son of an unemployed single mother (who has to live on a "social security" income of 685 Euro per month) or for financing a vocational training course, or to cover the fees for a driving license course.

It is interesting to note that the loanee typically is a woman whether in Bangladesh or in Paris.

In his early experiments in microcredit, in the seventies, Dr Yunus came to a crucial discovery: women in general were more responsible for the well-being and the economic future of the family members than men in a similar economic situation..

Analysing the first institution building phase of Grameen Bank, two Norwegian social scientists, in their early study of the phenomenon, noted (among many other interesting things) the silent pride and determination of Grameen Bank -- its leader and its members --- to succeed in the struggle to free the country from the grip of poverty. The two writers surmised that it could lead to an unexpected present from Bangladesh, a silently proud nation, to the world: an institution to fight poverty anywhere.

INTERVIEW/ Muhammad Yunus: Selfless side of humans can overcome crisis

BY TETSUO KOGURE

THE ASAHI SHIMBUN NEW DELHI BUREAU CHIEF

Nigeria

Godwin Ehigiamusoe, founder and managing director, Lift Above Poverty Organization (LAPO), a leading microfinance institution in Nigeria recently emerged as the winner of 2008 FATE Foundation’s Model Entrepreneur Award . In this interview with IDRIS UMAR MOMOH, our Benin, correspondent, he spoke on several issues including the FATE Foundation’s Award, achievements of LAPO, his mission in Sierra Leone and the way forward for the microfinance sub-sector .

Relationship with Muhammad Yunus
 Precisely I came into contact with Muhammad Yunus in April 1991, when I attended an International Dialogue programme at Grameen Bank. Since then I maintained close relationship with him and his top associates at Grameen Bank. Professor Yunus is a remarkable fellow who foresees a world without poverty, a goal achievable through access to appropriate financial services especially for low- persons. Most leading microfinance practitioners across the world draw inspiration from this Bangladeshi. He has special affection for LAPO and me. At a point in our recent national history, Professor Yunus was always amazed as how LAPO could come out with remarkable performances in an obviously difficult situation.

FATE Foundation Model Award
First of all, we need to have a background to what the award is. The FATE Foundation is an organization committed to enterprise development in Nigeria. In 2001, the Foundation instituted the award to acknowledge and celebrate an individual who through diligence and enterprise has become a role model for aspiring entrepreneurs. The selection process is thorough and rigorous. Over the years I have held the FATE Foundation in a very high esteem for what it does. Therefore, it was a great honour to be selected as the winner of that award. I think it is also an acknowledgement of LAPO’s accomplishments as well as the potentials of the microfinance sector in which I am involved. I feel good about it, it is better for LAPO and obviously the best acknowledgement of microfinance practice in recent times. 

 LAPO’s contributions to the microfinance sub sector
 It is true that we as an organization have over the years been active in microfinance. We have taken an institutional character which reflects the ways we operate. We have demonstrated commitment to poverty lending that is microfinance. We have also developed tested systems and procedures to do that .We have learnt from our experiences, from our successes and even some cases from our failures. LAPO has large outreach in terms of service delivery across Nigeria . For instance I delivered N9.3 billion to mainly female entrepreneurs in 2008. It is therefore understandable to associate LAPO microfinance in Nigeria and indeed Africa. 
 
LAPO and poverty alleviation
We need to know and look at what microfinance is all about. Essentially it is poverty lending, that is applying access to affordable financial services to address poverty. Considering the volume of financial services we have delivered over the years, as well our contributions to capacity building in the sector it safe to say that LAPO is making impact on poverty. Through provision of loans LAPO currently keeps over 300,000 women in self-employment that owing micro-enterprises. Employment is critical to poverty reduction. These low-income persons are enabled to send and retain their children at school, enhance nutritional status of their households and in some cases create job opportunities for others. LAPO currently engaged 1,712 persons as its staff personnel.
. In all these, we have done very well, and this informed the attention and recognition.

LAPO in Sierra Leone
This is an opportunity for me to put this in a clearer perspective. Many persons have actually asked me this question that is why go outside Nigeria when there is huge market in Nigeria. My response has always been that we at LAPO do not see a country as a market; we rather see country from the perspective of poverty situation and what role provision of financial services can play in poverty reduction. Take our programme in Sierra Leone like some few nations in Africa lost of the height of what is known as microfinance revolution in 1990s on account of civil strife. Currently there is tongs commitment of the part of the leadership and people of that country to grow their economy and reduce poverty. After a visit to a number of countries on the continent we felt an urgent need to support microfinance in Sierra Leone through service delivery and provision of technical assistance to local microfinance institutions. This is what we are doing there. Out interventions outside the country will not affect the pace and quality of our operations in Nigeria. It will have negative effects. These institutions need support for the development of their capacity. They no longer need to go out of Africa for training opportunities.

LAPO and pro-poor enterprise 
I will seek opportunities to support young Nigerians who are aspiring to be successful entrepreneurs.
I will confess that my background prepare me to be involved in a pro-poor enterprise as microfinance .I spent my years in the University besides my studies, organizing symposia and seminar on how to bring better life for the less privileged members of our society or the masses if you like. And therefore my getting involved with LAPO was essentially a sort of a follow up to those things I was doing in the University. But there are also some immediate prompting factors. For example we all know 1980s was when the economic crisis actually started in this country, and by 1986 the then military government adopted the implementations of the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) which actually brought hardship to our people. It was in this setting working as a cooperative officer in Ogwashi-ukwu which is now in Delta state that I initiated what was then known as “Lift Project” as voluntary initiative. What therefore prompted me was what someone can be regarded as the fallouts of the implementations of the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP).  
Impact of microfinance policy
 I strongly believe that the microfinance policy and regulatory framework is capable of developing the microfinance sector in the country. And there are few things to be done .For instance, there is need to look at the financing of microfinance in Nigeria, and that means that microfinance institutions and banks will have access to funds to make loans to low-income persons or micro-enterprises. It is obvious that low-income persons are not above to make enough deposits from which microfinance banks to use to finance their loan portfolio. The good news is that the Central Bank of Nigeria is already taking steps in this direction. The process should pace up as the greatest challenging for microfinance banks and institutions in inadequate re-financing mechanisms. They need funds to disburse to the poor. Operational procedures of what institutional arrangement or fund to come up should be clear, objective and transparent. Another area is that of provision of professional training for microfinance practitioners. There is lack of experienced staff; therefore there is the need to support institutions as LAPO to provide training for fledging institutions and persons aspiring to be practitioners. These are the key issues that need to be looked into.

Role of commercial banks in micro funding.
My position of this is clear; commercial banks have no business in the business of retailing microfinance services. They do not need to set up microfinance subsidiaries to benefit or make money from microfinance sub-sector. They should be involved in wholesale micro financing. They should rather set up Microfinance Funds owned and managed by the banks. Retail microfinance banks and institutions can access these funds for on-lending to their customers. This is more cost effective and it is the conventional practice international. However some banks in Nigeria but with international ownership are already using this wholesale approach, and I know they are not complaining.

Government, microfinance operators
 My appeal first is to the microfinance operators, that is investors and especially managers should strive to be very professional in their approach. Borrowers or owners of micro-enterprises should maximize the benefits of access to affordable financial services. Relevant government agencies to support the microfinance sector by spearheading the establishment of microfinance fund for the purpose of on-lending. Development agencies also have a role to play. Because of their experience in other countries where microfinance has been sufficiently developed they can also support the development of microfinance in Nigeria. Commercial banks have a major to play.

Interview with China’s Internet Godfather

The Financial Time’s Kathrin Hille interviews Jack Ma, founder and chairman of China’s online trading site Alibaba.com. View the video here:

Although China’s economy is so far faring better than others, domestic trade has slowed, affecting a large chunk of Alibaba’s business – 28.7m of its registered users are in its home market. To soften the blow, Alibaba has facilitated loans in excess of Rmb1bn to SMEs [small and medium-sized enterprises] that would otherwise have struggled to get money.

“We do the same thing as Muhammad Yunus,” says Mr Ma, referring to the father of microcredit

Three Entries from Journal of Norman Macrae: Diary of a Microeconomist 1943-2009

Entry 1 - After Royal Automobile Club lunch on Future Capitalism with Dr Yunus

(St James’ London 2008, Feb15)

A lesson in how to run village businesses and not to handle bank crises comes also from Japan. When I wrote my first book on Japan’s economy nearly 50 years ago, Japan had about two dozen lightly taxed exporting multinationals who bought their components marvelously cheaply. The car factories bought their ball bearings from tiny village firms, and the banks attached to Toyota etc kept on lending even when some peasant’s first bearings did not past muster but gradually propelled him to work with or under a brighter neighbouring peasant whose products did. That seemed inefficient to American experts and in the early 1960’s I had a translated debate on Tokyo television with an American who said that such slack banking would ruin the country. I rejoiced as Japan then quintupled its living standards in the next twenty years and its banks became temporarily the most powerful and prosperous in the world. The crash came when in the late 1980s American business schools convinced Japanese factories that components must be bought just-in-time. The big banks turned to financing suppliers who could do this (which were not those striving to be cheapest). Banks lent mainly to new firms who could provide collateral which meant to richer ones. Once they were lending mainly to the rich they blew up such a bubble that the nearest golf course to Tokyo was said to have a greater land value than the whole state of California. When this bubble burst, all the banks had bad debts, which the government helped them to hide so Japanese living standards stop rising fast since circa 1989. This is the threat to the whole rich world today.

The first questions to be asked in the next few programmes, said the compilers, were 1) which countries should qualify for aid? ; and having decided that, 2) up to what limits and conditions? ; and 3) through what mechanisms? They promised that later programmes after the first half-dozen would examine how any scheme could be used to diminish the power of governments and increase the power of free markets and free people.

Entry 3 - View During Congress Trillion Dollar Bailout

(Wimbledon, last quarter 2008)

I believe you will find that mostofa can give you a list of the 50 most extraordinary projects going on inside grameen and if you want to see the project leader help organise that during your 30 day stay; brac would have a parralel 50 that future capitalists might want to map; I am not a film-maker so I am unclear whether you have a lot of fact finding personal interviews to do at this stage or if you at yunusmovie are videoing straight away

I believe you can gain from early going to the film archives and the nobel history museum of grameen's evolution if you havent already done so; again mostofa can help with that; there is also a local photographer who literally has albums of when yunus was a longish haired revolutionary and some of the early village centres look a bit like female army training camps ; the story behind this is (I am told) that when dr yunus' 4 founders first went into the vilages in the eraly 1970s they found women so down trodden that they decided even the body language of respect for self needed developing and so early 16 decisions meetings do look a bit military - I have one example from early era on youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbfWCUsyW3Y&feature=channel_page

again depending on what research you have already done, there are about 20 extraordinary books at about $5 each on the whole evolution of grameen and brac and asa but only about 10 bookshops that sell them - mostofa can take you to one-these books are not at all the same as the glossy international books - of which banker for the poor by yunus and the new freedom from want by ian smillie on brac are defining practical histories as far as I understand

 there are also about 50 published yunus speech-leaflets including "growing up with 2 giants" the national strategy that he and all microcredit leaders aim to develop in connecting bangladesh econmy with china and india; bangaldesh has the deepest sustainability rural solutions that both china and india need

the evolution of grameen around what is now 125000+ village centres (hubbing as safe spaces for women to peer to peer learn and communallky organise) is of course why grameen was from day 1 the bank -and 7 million female microentreprenurs who became nobel prize winners - searching for every sustainability solution not just a loan counter,

 and since 1996 why the revolution of village women owing the strategy of the nation's largest mobile phone company was a more practical revolution for sustainability than the www itself (somewhere in this is the mit entrepreneur iqbal quadir without whom one wonders if yunus would have timed how to get the mobile franchise at about 1% of what it would have been somd at if global consultants and world banks ever made order of magnitude correct estimates of market futures);

if you add up the sectors that make up bangaldesh's economy, I believe you will find that over half are owned by the poorest - a brilliant third of a century expoenmtials compound multiplier that brac and grameen folowed by other microcredits like asa have colaboratively networked; it interesst me that so few economists noted that it only took enron 40 quarters to compound itself from a tiny company to at its peak one of the biggest 50 economies national or corporate in the whole world - all utter fiction and until wall street's escapades the most economically destructive single system ever accounted for;

and yet when bangladeshi microcredits do the real work of sustainability investment the same rotting nmacroeconomists  and (the now) 4 mathematically fictional global accounting chains abismally try to block everyone seeing  hi-trust's good news- even Ian Fleming wouldnt have dared to write up such a villainous networking script

absolutely central if you havent already met her is mrs begum - the mother of microcredit as the only woman in the founding four and therefore the only one who could speak directly with initial vilage members- like others of Grameen founders she is at what would ordinarily be retiring age so its magic you make the film now- she is also one of the greatest unknown educational revolutionaries -my favourite of all entrepreneurial compasses

towards the end of next week once mostofa has finished exams I will be in london and aim to go through all the video and flight itineraries already known about- so if you can tell me by may 27 or so if you know your flight path- otherwise as I book through a london travel agency which is used to my emails I can just introduce you to the travel agent and they can order it for you I am guessing that mostofa may well go early to dhaka eg about the same time 3rd week of june you do but obvously its much better if he finishes exams before we go to bext level of detailed discussion; I myself probably need to get to dhaka about 4 days before june 29 as I need to do one search of interns etc amd have a go at demolishing Grameen's main meeting room which is often set up like a mini united nations intsead of an open space; it is also the case that we might start offering some field visits before  june 29 as well as immediately after to the whole group who are coming

It is worth knowing that everything closes on friday -the main weekend day and the working week is seen very much as sunday through thursday inclusive; obviously vivian has been to bangladesh before, but have you? -alexis or sofia might be able to answer some detailed questions if you have not

chris macrae http://yunus.tv

in hunt of the world's 100 miost urgent sustainability crises and benchmarks for  open source solutions