AS WRITTEN

Small Farmers, Producers, and Microentrepreneurs Caucus

Plenary Address by
Professor Muhammad Yunus

at the World Summit for Social Development
Copenhagen, Denmark
March 9, 1995


Mr. Chairman and the distinguished delegates:

 I bring greetings to you from the two million women borrowers of Grameen 
Bank in Bangladesh. They wish you to know that they are fortunate to have 
Grameen Bank to support them. With tiny loans averaging slightly over $100, 
one-third of them have already crossed the poverty line with their own 
efforts and talents.

 The remaining two-third will cross the poverty-line within the next five 
years. All of the Grameen families have increased their family income 
rapidly, birth rate has declined in these families, nutrition level has 
significantly increased; over 300,000 of them have built decent houses with 
Grameen housing loans, installed hand tubewells for pure drinking water, 
and set up sanitary latrines ---all with Grameen Bank loans.

 Grameen Bank started out in 1976, by giving out US$30 to 42 people. 
Eighteen years later, Grameen disbursed US$385 million in 1994 alone. 
Projected disbursement in 1995 exceeds half a billion US dollars.

 Grameen borrowers have demonstrated how good the poor are in paying back 
bank loans. They deserve to be rated as top-class clients by any banking 
standard. But the conventional banks still do not consider the poor as 
credit-worthy. Will it be wrong now to say that the conventional banks are 
not poeple-worthy?

 Mr. Chairman:

 If this Social Summit is taking the challenge of poverty-alleviation 
seriously, then the task would be to create people-worthy banks, both in 
the poor and the rich countries, to establish credit as a human right.

 Many among us talk about poverty alleviation but do not really believe 
that poverty alleviation is a feasible proposition. Seeing what is 
happening among Grameen borrowers, non-believers will easily turn into firm 
believers. I am totally convinced that the poverty alleviation is very much 
a do-able proposition. If we can create a global commitment, we can 
definitively create a poverty-free world within the next fifty years.

 The poor are completely capable of changing their own lives with their own 
efforts, provided barriers which are put around them by the existing system 
are removed. All people are endowed with incredible potentials. But, for 
the poor and the small producers these potentials remain unexplored.

 If the bottom fifty percent of the world population, i.e., the poor and 
the small producers, are allowed to bring out their productivity, 
ingenuity, and creativity -- the world will be a better place for all.

 Mr. Chairman

In the name of "development", we have invested large sums of money over the 
past few decades. But they hardly touched the lives of the bottom fifty 
percent of our people.

 In this Social Summit, let us all agree that we shall not accept any 
investment as development expenditure unless it touches the lives of the 
bottom fifty percent of the people.

 I urge the taxpayers in the donor countries to make sure that their money 
directly benefits the bottom fify percent in the recipient countries.

 Poverty has not been created by the poor. It is created by the 
institutions and policies we have built around us. Unless these are 
redesigned, and alternative institutions and policies are made, poverty 
will continue to flourish.

 My country, Bangladesh, has received US$27 billion in foreign assistance 
over the last 23 years. But you don't see the imprint of this money on the 
faces of the poor.

 Where did all this money go? Research findings tell us: 75 percent of 
their money was spent in donor countries to pay for commodities, equipment, 
consultants, experts, and contractors. The remaining 25 percent spent in 
Bangladesh went to local contractors, local suppliers, local consultants, 
and bureaucracy. What did the bottom fifty per cent get out of it? I am 
sure you can guess.

 Of course, everything was justified in the name of the poor people.

 Mr. Chairman:

 The policies you endorse here must empower -- not ignore -- the bottom 
people, the poor and the small producers, who are the engines of 
sustainable economic progress and stakeholders in the civil society.

 The Small Farmers, Producers, and Microentrepreneurs Caucus urges you, Mr. 
Chairman, to consider the language it has developed to fill the current 
void in the Summit document where the poor and the small producers are 
concerned.

 The poor and the small producers are not asking for charity or handouts. 
They are asking for the same opportunities as enjoyed by other segments of 
the society.

 Mr. Chairman:

 Let us put our faith in the capabilities of individual human beings. Let 
us accept the fact each human being is capable of ensuring his/her human 
dignity if we only create the supportive environment.

 Let us commit ourselves to creating a poverty-free world in the next fifty 
years. Let us promise that we shall not let a single family on this planet 
suffer from the disgrace of poverty.

 Thank you, Mr. Chairman.