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Grameen Bank Housing Project, Bangladesh


The Grameen Bank Programme was started in 1976 in the village of Jobra, Bangladesh by Dr. Mohammad Yunus.

The Grameen Bank programme provides credit to the rural, landless poor for income generating activities without any collateral required from its customers. The people organise themselves into small savings groups, overseeing punctual repayment by their members. A housing loan facility was started, based on the practical experiences of the Grameen Bank workers that as the income generating capacity of the borrowers improved their demand for better housing increased. Along with the housing loan, each borrower receives some basic pre-fabricated building materials.The cumulative number of houses built with Grameen Bank Housing Loans until end of September 2003 was 573,024.

Micro credit
The general features of GB’s credit system are as follows:

  Its mission is to help the poor families to help themselves to overcome poverty, with a focus on poor women
  It is not based on any collateral or legally enforceable contracts. It is based on ‘trust’, not on legal procedures and systems
  It is offered for creating self-employment for income-generating activities and housing, as opposed to consumption
  It provides service at the doorstep based on the principle that ‘people should not go to the bank, bank should come to the people’
  A borrower must join a group of borrowers to obtain loans
  Loans can be received in a continuous sequence. A new loan becomes available to a borrower if the previous loan is repaid

The GB has generated a number of benefits both at the household and village level. At the household level, the benefits from programme participation include changes in income, employment, assets accumulation, net-worth, and other household welfare indicators. Grameen Bank Programme participation has enabled members to enhance their assets and net-worth. The GB model has influenced many organisations internationally across the world.

Further information
  Jain.D, Niazi.Z (2005); Participatory Rural Habitat Processes: Emerging Trends; Development Alternatives, BSHF; New Delhi. "request for a copy"
  Jain. P, Moore. M (2003), What makes micro credit programmes effective? Fashionable fallacies and workable realities, IDS paper 177, Sussex, England.
  Yunus.M (1993), What is Micro credit?, Grameen Bank, Bangladesh
  Todd.H (1996), Cloning Grameen Bank: Replicating a poverty reduction model in India, Nepal and Vietnam, IT Publications, England