May 12, 2011, will go down as one of the most significant dates in the microfinance industry. After months of enduring dogged attacks from the Bangladeshi government, Professor Muhammad Yunus resigned as managing director of Grameen Bank, the institution he founded and built over the past three decades.

In announcing his resignation, Yunus said he wanted to prevent further disruption to Grameen Bank’s activities and undue harm to the 8.3 million members –- 97 percent of whom are women – who own the bank. He also urged the members and staff to fight valiantly to maintain the independence of the venerable institution. Deputy managing director Nurjuhan Begum, a longtime ally of Prof. Yunus and a current member of Grameen Foundation’s Board of Directors, will serve as the Bank’s managing director until a permanent head is appointed.

Though this is certainly a deep blow against independent civil society, we firmly believe that the ideals that shaped the Bank and helped to build a global movement to empower the poor will live on. Prof. Yunus has never been afraid to speak his mind or challenge the status quo as he pursues his bold vision of a world free from poverty. That voice of reason, which dispelled prevailing notions about the abilities of poor people, has not been silenced and will continue to inspire others.

Grameen Foundation will continue to work with Prof. Yunus to promote opportunities that benefit poor people and give them the tools they need to better their own lives. We also hope that an independent Grameen Bank will remain a beacon for the microfinance community.

Grameen Foundation President and CEO Alex Counts trained under Prof. Yunus at Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, and worked with Prof. Yunus to create Grameen Foundation. Read his statement on Prof. Yunus’ resignation.

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More than one-third of Kenyans living in rural areas have no access to financial services. In a country where 80 percent of the people earn their living through agriculture, this means that many rural Kenyans cannot access the funding they need to purchase farming equipment or livestock. Grameen Foundation is trying to expand opportunities in these remote areas.

Together with the Acumen Fund, we recently co-invested more than $1.7 million in Juhudi Kilimo, a microfinance institution that works exclusively with smallholder farmers in poor, rural communities. It provides loans, as well as business and agricultural training, to help farmers build successful businesses. The loans enable farmers to purchase agricultural assets, such as improved breeds of dairy cows that can produce more than four times more milk per day than local dairy cows in Kenya, increasing household income by potentially $600 per year.

Historically, few lenders have provided financing for small-scale agricultural enterprises because of concerns about the inherent risks of farming, such as droughts, floods, disease and poor crop yields. Juhudi Kilimo, a pioneer in offering these types of loans to small-holder farmers, minimizes this risk by insuring the farmers’ equipment and livestock.

To ensure that it is meeting its social mission of serving poor farmers, Juhudi Kilimo will be using our Progress out of Poverty Index™ to collect data on the clients it is serving and changes in their economic well-being over time.

Learn more about how our Capital Markets team is helping microfinance institutions and other poverty-focused organizations fund innovative approaches that offer financial services and other economic opportunities to the world’s poorest people, and find out how you can help support opportunities like this.

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A new family business has increased Ibu Hanifa’s monthly household income by 50 percent since January. She is part of a Grameen Foundation pilot program that is helping some of Indonesia’s poorest households access new business opportunities. PT Ruma, a social business created and supported by Grameen Foundation and Qualcomm’s Wireless Reach™, helps these households set up microfranchise businesses that sell airtime and other information services to their local communities.

Ruma’s typical clients are poor, but few of them are as poor as Ibu Hanifa. She, her husband and two small children live with her parents and her brother’s family in a small house in the Kunciran area of Indonesia’s Tangerang District. Her husband earns about $15 per week doing electrical repairs in the neighborhood, while she stays at home to look after the children.

Through this pilot program, Ruma – with support and advice from Grameen Foundation’s Solutions for the Poorest team – provides Ibu Hanifa and others with customized support, including training, and a small start-up loan of approximately $10 for her business. One key value is the personal attention and mentoring provided by the team’s field officers, who come from the same communities.

Despite her lack of experience, Ibu Hanifa has demonstrated that, given the right opportunity and support, even the poorest and most vulnerable people can run a successful business. She has become one of the best airtime sellers, with a weekly income of approximately $7. She has already paid off the $10 loan she took from the project in January and is now part of Ruma’s regular microfranchise network. The project team is continuing to provide her with the support she needs until she has completely stabilized in the new business.

Our work with Ibu Hanifa and others in Indonesia – made possible only through the generous donations of our supporters – will help develop a model that Ruma and other micro franchise organizations worldwide can use to provide products and services that best serve the needs of the poorest.

Learn more about the ways in which we are helping very poor people start and run successful businesses and build better futures for their families.

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Microfinance is continuing to flourish in the Middle East and North Africa, despite the ongoing turmoil in the region. Though the operations of some microfinance institutions (MFIs) have been disrupted, there has been no immediate, significant impact on the broader industry. In fact, this may well be a prime opportunity for microfinance to flourish regionally over time, specifically in tackling such issues as unemployment and poverty.

Our work in the region is done through Grameen-Jameel Microfinance Ltd., a partnership between Grameen Foundation and the Abdel Latif Jameel (ALJ) Foundation, a subsidiary of ALJ Group. Established in 2003 and incorporated in 2007, it has facilitated more than $56 million in financing to micro-entrepreneurs through partner MFIs in nine countries in the region.

Grameen-Jameel’s key focus involves financing and strengthening the capacity of microfinance institutions (MFIs) to serve their clients effectively. In Tunisia, it recently worked with enda inter-arabe, one of the country's leading institutions, to measure how well its “people practices” were helping it meet its social mission. This is critical for MFIs, which rely on loan officers and other front-line microfinance staff who have the most direct contact with clients. With the help of consultants from Grameen Foundation's Human Capital Center, enda's team examined how well it was doing in attracting, developing and retaining a talented and dedicated staff – the first step in developing a roadmap to move forward. Currently, enda is prioritizing the work to be done within its HR function and implementing certain recommendations provided by the Human Capital Center.

Building a strong, cohesive microfinance sector in the region is also critical. Together with the Social Fund for Development (SFD), Grameen-Jameel and Grameen Foundation funded a feasibility study to determine the viability and provide guidance on how best to consolidate the microfinance sector in Yemen, one of the poorest countries in the Middle East. The final study was completed in November 2010 by a Grameen-Jameel consultant, and will serve as a guide for the next steps for the development of the microfinance sector in that country.

We are thankful that Grameen-Jameel’s partners in Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen and elsewhere are safe. Learn more about our work in the Middle East and North Africa.

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Rebuilding Shattered Lives, One Phone at a Time

A simple mobile phone is helping Simon Obwoya bring new opportunities to a community that has faced the brunt of Uganda’s brutal civil war. Obwoya lives in Lalogi subcounty in northern Uganda, a region that is home to thousands of people who have been displaced by a decades-long insurgency. People have recently started returning to their land, and learning how to farm and take care of their families again, making his services invaluable.

Obwoya, a smallholder farmer himself and a Grameen Foundation Community Knowledge Worker (CKW), travels around his district, mostly on foot, giving fellow farmers vital information on treating their diseased crops and sick animals, the best crops to plant and when to plant them based on the weather forecast, and market prices at different locations. As an active member of his local farming network, Obwoya is intimately familiar with many of the challenges they face and uses his network to promote the program and register new members.

Obwoya and his family are lucky to have a few disconnected acres of land and two cows. While he might seem to be one of the better-off farmers in his village, his family eats just two meals per day, has no electricity and cooks over a wood fire in a very smoky cooking hut.

CKWs like Obwoya are playing a vital role in introducing an entirely new way to get relevant, local information to farmers where they need it, while collecting real-time data through their phones that is valuable to various agencies looking to help the poor. Their daily experiences are helping us to improve the program and are a constant reminder that though technology can facilitate solutions, it is not the solution. People who are empowered with information, and who can help improve the lives of their neighbors while improving the effectiveness of local institutions, are what really make the difference.

You can support our efforts to help poor, rural farmers in Uganda build a better future for their communities by making a gift today.

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Bankers without Borders Comes to the U.S.

U.S.-based microentrepreneurs can now benefit from the expertise and experience of Grameen Foundation’s Bankers without Borders (BwB) volunteer corps. We will be collaborating with the Association for Enterprise Opportunity (AEO), the umbrella organization for the more than 400 microfinance and microenterprise organizations across the U.S., to provide on-site technical assistance, training, mentoring and remote consulting.

Over the past two decades, AEO member organizations have helped more than 2 million entrepreneurs gain a solid footing in the business arena. Through this collaboration, these organizations will have access to experienced BwB volunteers who will help them increase their outreach and effectiveness in serving low-income and underserved entrepreneurs.

Roughly 45 percent of the more than 6,500 professionals in the BwB volunteer corps live in the U.S., making this alliance with AEO an ideal opportunity for them to help support budding entrepreneurs. This comes at a time when high unemployment levels are prompting many to launch their own business ventures.

Are you a skilled retired or active professional looking to make a difference? Please consider donating your time and expertise to fight poverty by joining our Bankers without Borders volunteer corps.

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Grameen Foundation, a global nonprofit organization, helps the world's poorest people lift themselves out of poverty by providing financing, technology support and management strategies to the local organizations that serve them. It also spearheads technology initiatives that create new microbusiness opportunities for the poor and improve the poor's access to health, agricultural and financial information and other services. Founded in 1997, Grameen Foundation has offices in Washington, DC; Seattle, WA; Colombia; Ghana; Hong Kong; the Philippines; and Uganda. Microfinance pioneer Dr. Muhammad Yunus, founder of Grameen Bank and winner of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize, is a founding member of its Board of Directors, and now serves as director emeritus.