'Rock star' economist Muhammad Yunus dazzles U of T audience at Munk School discussion

“The Mick Jagger for our generation.”

That’s how one audience member described Muhammad Yunus after the Nobel Peace Prize laureate finished speaking at the Munk School of Global Affairs on May 30. And Yunus was indeed given rock star treatment, as attendees crowded around the famed economist, waiting for their chance to pose for photos or get an autograph, long after the conclusion of his talk.

So strong was the demand to see Yunus that the Munk School’s conference room was full and an overflow room had to be set up as well. The dialogue was also streamed live to an internet audience. 

His talk at the Munk School wasn’t his first visit to U of T, as Munk School Director Janice Stein pointed out – the University awarded Yunus an honourary degree in 1995 for his work with microcredit and the Grameen Bank.

The 73-year-old economist is known for pioneering the concept of microcredit – the loaning of very small sums to impoverished borrowers who typically lack collateral and are neglected by traditional banks. He started the microcredit revolution with a loan of $27 to 43 poor women in his native Bangladesh in 1974. Since then, his Grameen Bank, which he founded in 1976, has helped more than 8.3 million borrowers, 97 per cent of whom are women. “We were the first bank to loan money to women,” he told the Munk School audience.

Currently, he chairs the Yunus Centre in Bangladesh and is a member of many boards and commissions around the world, including the Advisory Council for Sustainable Economic Development, World Bank; the UN Expert Group on Women and Finance: Transforming Enterprise and Finance Systems, UNIFEM; and Founder and Executive Trustee for Grameen Trust, Dhaka. Yunus and the Grameen Bank received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for pioneering work in fighting global poverty through loans and other financial services for the poor. He has been honoured with more than 125 international awards, including the U of T honourary degree in 1995.

Yunus’s U of T appearance was structured as a conversation with Munk School Senior Fellow and former Globe and Mail editor-in-chief John Stackhouse, who has been covering poverty and development issues for years. In a lively discussion with Yunus, Stackhouse posed both his own questions and questions submitted by audience members.

Yunus dismissed Stackhouse’s suggestion that evidence of the Grameen Bank’s success is mixed. “We’ve loaned out over one and a half billion dollars to these women,” Yunus responded. “And their savings are also over one and a half billion dollars, so practically it is their money to take. And they change their life. Even if you forget the loan amount, the fact that the institution has helped them to save all this money; to say that nothing happens with microcredit, somebody’s fooling themself.”

Yunus also discussed whether microcredit can work in Canada - “There’s no reason why it shouldn’t work. There are a number of microcredit and microfinance programs here.” - and whether the microcredit movement shifts social responsibility away from government - “If government is already doing it, how can we shift it? If they’re not doing it, then we should get involved.”

He also recounted Grameen Bank’s success in extending its concept to other countries, including the United States, where there are six branches in New York City alone, with more than 20,000 borrowers.  

Yunus devoted a large part of his talk to what he called “social business”, where the object is not to make a profit but to improve society. Grameen Bank has been involved in several social businesses – most notably one where the bank partnered with French yogurt company Danon to produce inexpensive, nutritious and tasty yogurt for children in poorer countries. In fact, while in Canada, Yunus will be meeting with members of the McCain family about a proposed social business project to help former coffee growers in Colombia grow potatoes instead, he said.

He finished with a reminder to the audience – especially the students – that there is more to life than making money. “Humans are multidimensional. We’re not just about making money. We don’t just have a selfish dimension; we have a selfless dimension. Making money can be a happiness; but helping other people is a super-happiness.”