In 1976 Professor Muhammad Yunus, Head of the Rural Economics Program at the University of Chittagong, investigated the possibility of designing a credit delivery system to provide banking services targeted at the rural poor. The Grameen Bank was born (Grameen means "rural" or "village" in Bangla language). The philosophy behind the bank was that the extremely poor, given the opportunity of borrowing a small amount of money, can make dramatic improvements in their life through establishing a small business. The loans, typically in the range of $25, are made to people who a bank would typically not lend to because they have no security. These people would usually have to borrow from loan sharks whose outrageous interest rates and violent practices would work towards keeping the poor poor.

In essence Microcredit is the extension of small loans to enterpreneurs too poor to qualify for traditional bank loans and it has been phenonemonly successful, spreading from its roots in Bangladesh across much of the poorer sections of the world.

One of the characteristics of Microcredit is that 97% of the borrowers are women and in particular women who are disempowered through gender discriminations within their communities. The success of the program might cause one to wonder at the motivation for these women and there is a fringe element in the feminist movement who believe that their motivation is to free themselves from the men who dominate their lives. The reality is, however, far more modest. New research by Dr Alfred Lakwo of the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research has found the principal objectives for the women who take the opportunities provided by the loans is not to be dependent on men and to feel that they are taken more seriously as partners and village residents. Basically we are talking about self-esteem. According to Dr Fred, policy makers should realise that this is not the same as creating independent 'macho' women, a western outlook on the emancipation of women.

The objective of the microcredit program is to empower individuals and particularly women to be able to make their own choices and not to impose our western ideals and expectations upon them. They have had quite enough of that in the past.

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