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It is intriguing to note how television, radio and the press (for example, The Guardian Weekend on 3lst October) have focussed their attention on the Grameen Bank serving the poor in Bangladesh and its founder Muhammed Yunus. Not much of this comment points to the way the banking system in Britain now shuns the poor, closing branches on the desolate estates which no longer provide any lucrative customers. The nearest British equivalents are of course the credit unions which have been started in several parts of the country to fill the gap that banks have emptied. Last year The Guardian revealed that 28% of Birmingharn's population had no local access to banking services. Cheap credit, easy for the wealthy, is denied to the poor, with the result that, as Ben Rogaly put it in that paper, "the biggest providers of credit in Ladywood ward are the 'legalised ban sharks', the private companies who peddle bans door-to-door around the housing estates. Agents encourage people to take bans well beyond their means, then put the pressure on with weekly visits."
I learned about the Grameen Bank ten years ago in Baltimore. I had been awarded a lot of money to Write a book about the problems of the 'inner city' and one of the conditions was that I spent some of it looking at the model of city regeneration provided by the United States and admired by Mrs Thatcher's ministers in whose footsteps I trod. They went to admire the regeneration of central Baltimore, but I found that just a few minutes walk away from the glamorous harbour area renewal, I could stumble into urban poverty on a scale beyond my experience. I was talking to some of the people associated with Howard Ehrlich and the magazine Social Anarchism, and two of them, Chris Stadier and Michael Mazepink. thrust in front of me copies of an article by Kenneth Grundy in the Philadeiphia Enquirer explaining that the Grameen Bank made very small loans at low interest rates to very poor people. It was unique in its focus on landless peasant women as members. Mazepink and Stadler wanted to find ways of importing this kind of initiative in the poverty belt of their own city. Ten years later the United States has at least 200 organisations built on the Grameen Bank ideology.
Obviously it needs many more. The Guardian feature was by far the most interesting thing in that paper and consisted of Mohammed Yunus's explanation extracted from his book Banker to the Poor (Aurum Press). He explains that: "I soon discovered the world's basic banking principle, namely that: 'The more you have, the more you get.' and conversely that 'If you don't have it, you don't get it.' Our clients do not need to show how large their savings are and how much wealth they have, they need to prove how poor they are, how little savings they have.
To rny arnazernent and surprise the repayment of loans by people who borrow without collateral is much better than those whose borrowings are secured by enormous assets. Indeed, more than 98% of our loans are repaid because the poor know this is the only opportunity they have to break out of their poverty."
And he added the explanation that, 'now we have more than 2,000 employees and 1,112 branches in Bangladesh. The staff meet more than 2,300,000 borrowers face to face each week, on their doorstep. Each month we lend out more than $35 million in tiny bans. At the same time, almost, a similar amount comes back to us in repayments. If Grameen was to work, we had to trust our clients. From the very first day, we decided than in our system there would be no room for the police. We never use the judiciary in seeking repayment of our loans... we do not involve lawyers, or any outsiders ... there is no legal instrument between the lender and the borrower. We feel our relationship is with people, not with papers."
For anarchists there are reflections of Proudhon's abortive mutual People's Bank of 150 years ago. The contrast is the steady success of the Grameen Bank and the fact that the vast majority of its borrowers and lenders are wornen. Another of its activities has been its housing programme. We have been reminded this year of the fact that the rural poor in Bangladesh are the victirns of regular floods that sweep away their livelihood, their homes and possessions. The Grameen Bank initiated a housing programme based on a basic kit consisting of roof sheeting bought in the market with bans rather than prescribed by the bank, a latrine cover slab, and four reinforced concrete corner columns, two of which can be carried in one rickshaw. Walls and windows are provided by the dwellers and made of jute or bamboo. In flood conditions, the family can sling its belonging from the roof trusses and climb onto the roof. The corner posts remain for the next rebuilding. The Architectural Review explains that: "The walls are not permanent; indeed, when they are not washed away, termite attack and other forms of biological decay necessitate their being replaced every two or three years. But this is not expensive and can be seen as part of a continuous process of growth and change: the houses are forever being adapted and extended Anyone familiar with housing aid programmes will recognise how different the Grameen Bank's modest approaclt to the appaling situation of Bangladeshi peasants is frorn the World Bank approach which enriches international city speculators while very little trickles down to the intended recipients.
Colin Ward