Economic Value of Grameen Bank’s Micro Credit for Alleviating Poverty andEnvironmental Perspective in Bangladesh
Shamsunnahar Khanam*
Ph.D. Student at Graduate School of Environmental & Life Engineering, Toyohashi University of TechnologyandYuzuru Miyata
Graduate School of Architecture and Civil Engineering, Toyohashi University of Technology
Abstract:
Bangladesh is in south Asia and is a developing country. As a general illustration of all the developing countries, majority ofthe total population is living in the rural areas and is below the “poverty” line. Before the middle of the nineteenth century, lackaccess of capital and income were found as the prime reasons of poverty in the rural Bangladesh. Thus, to alleviate poverty,
income generation and access of credit were seen the main concern to both the national development plans and policies, and thenon-governmental organizations, like Grameen Bank. Grameen Bank (literally, village bank) has first introduced the concept of“Micro-credit” system to meet the needs of capital and to generate income in the rural poor of Bangladesh. Since its
establishment in 1976 until recently, Grameen Bank’s micro-credit was considered one of the best solutions to alleviate poverty
from rural Bangladesh.
However, in the middle of the nineteenth century a new problem called “Global Warming” alarmed the development
practitioners to rethink on poverty reduction strategy. Global warming is the increase in the earth temperature that is caused byincreasing concentration of greenhouse gases (GHG) resulting from human activities such as fossil fuel burning anddeforestation. A large gap is seen in the emissions of GHGs between the developed and the developing countries. The
industrialized countries are emitting more GHGs causing more wasteful consumption pattern that leads to a reckless lifestyle.
The per capita GHG emission by industrialized countries is about 6 times of the world average emissions. However,developing countries like Bangladesh is not a big GHG emitter (According to the 2009 Global Climate Risk Index).
Recently, a ranking of 170 countries most vulnerable to climate change complied by Germanwatch, an international
nongovernmental organization that works on environment and development issues. The study shows that the country isparticularly at a very high risk because it is a vast delta plain with 230 rivers, many of which unstably swell during the monsoon
rains. This geology, combined with river water from the melting Himalayan glaciers in the north and an encroaching Bay ofBengal in the south, makes the region prone to severe flooding. This situation is made worse by the prevalence of intensestorms, a marker of climate stresses. Thus, it is predicted that the changes of climate due to global warming will severely affectthe economy as well as human welfare and will further increase the number of poor in Bangladesh.
Geographically Bangladesh is a vulnerable country of natural calamity. Natural disasters are destroying the crops, capital aswell as work of the people from over centuries. Therefore, to alleviate poverty from the rural Bangladesh with distributing
credit, both government and non-governmental organizations should pay attention to protect the people from natural disasters
and future climate change by global warming. Thus, one of the main goals of this work is to focus on how Grameen Bank’s
micro-credit system works to alleviate poverty during the natural disasters in Bangladesh and how it could be made more
efficiently. It is to be noted that during the establishment in 1976, the only focus of GB was micro-credit. However, gradually it
has elaborated its work for environmental protection since the last half of the 1996. As part of it, Grameen Shakti (energy), oneof the environmental friendly family projects of Grameen Bank has started to provide green energy technologies to the ruralpeople, thus giving them further opportunity to develop their lives without damaging the environment. Thus, this paper also
aims to show how Grameen Bank is working to reduce CO2 (the main green house gases) emissions to safeguard Bangladesh.
We also propose some strategies to mitigate CO2 that will enhance its work to the country.