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When you think about the number of people who have affected positive social change in the lives of millions or billions of people with little or no financial gain for themselves, the list in all of history is quite short. One candidate for the list is Muhammad Yunus, the Nobel Laureate who launched the worldwide initiative for micro-finance as a means to economic development for the world's poor. He also probably deserves the credit for bringing social entrepreneurship to the world's attention and in the long run that may be a greater contribution than popularizing micro-finance.
Today the BBC announced that the Central Bank of Bangladesh is trying to terminate Mr. Yunus as the head of Grameen Bank, the vehicle for micro-finance which has been copied in so many countries. The Central Bank is a significant shareholder in Grameen and are taking action because Mr. Yunus is ten years past retirment age and twenty two years ago was alledgedly not installed properly as the head of Grameen. One might wonder why it took the Central bank ten to twenty years to identify these issues. The answer lies in understanding how the status quo is changed.
Significant change in the status quo, especially in social issues, is very much a matter of substance over form. One must disrupt the current governmental and commercial interests who invariably feel threatened by new methods that perhaps do not involve them. As the social project makes progress and gains traction the world press begins to document the success, the jealousy begins and the fear of disruption increases in the government and commercial sectors. In response, those threatened unleash a wave of criticism. (Mr. Yunus is frrequently held responsible by his critics for every failing of micro-finance anywhere in the world.) Much of the criticism is unfair or unfounded but it does have the desired result to slow down the social change. When criticism is ineffective, the commercial and government interests resort to legal remedies, such as removing Mr. Yunus for legal technicalities. Whether the Central Bank Governors are acting from jealousy or fear of being disrupted is unclear, but somewhere in that maze of personal motivations lies the explanation for the Central Bank removal efforts of Yunus.
Of course Mr. Unus' efforts in micro-finance are not the only large social project serving millions of the most needy that face similar challenges from those disrupted, but the behavior of the "critics" appears to always be the same. Maybe there is something about social entrepreneurship that attracts such ire. Maybe combining the best commercial practices with a social mission is particularly threatening to the vested interests.
The views here are my personal opinions and do not reflect the views of any organization with whom I am affiliated.
