Appendix 9: The Grameen Bank Family of Organizations

Grameen Bank (www.grameen.com or www.grameen.org)
The Grameen Bank (GB) concept was developed in 1976 by Professor Mohammad Yunus, creating a banking system based on mutual trust, accountability, participation and creativity (Grameen means "village" in Bangla). GB provides credit to the poorest of the poor in rural Bangladesh without any collateral and boasts a loan repayment rate of 96-100%. Grameen's approach is widely acknowledged as effective in reducing poverty, and its micro-credit model has been applied in more than 50 countries around the world.

Grameen Bank undertakes a strategy of sectoral interventions (eg.in fisheries, textiles, telecommunications and other sectors) in order to address the poverty issue in Bangladesh more effectively and create opportunities for the poor to access resources. This strategy has given GB the scope to explore the country's resource potential with the aim to meaningfully involve poor people directly or indirectly as the ultimate beneficiaries. The Grameen family of organizations exhibit a great deal of dynamism and a quick pace of change. We were keen to learn about the extent of complementarity among the organizations, coupled with a large degree of autonomy between them. What holds them together is the Grameen Bank commitment to tackling poverty alleviation by combining micro-credit with other technologies and productive opportunities.

The following table provides a summary of GB's extensive coverage:

Table 2.A May 1999 Grameen Bank Figures⁷

Grameen Trust (www.grameen.org/grameen/gtrust)
As a result of the success of Grameen Bank in reaching and serving the poor with credit, many people and organizations have begun to use Grameen's principles in their own work. This has created a great deal of demand for training and technical assistance from Grameen and in some cases for financial support to start Grameen-style programmes. It is primarily to meet this demand that the Grameen Trust (GT) came into being in 1989 as a private, non-profit, non-governmental organization.

Grameen Fund
Grameen Fund is the venture-capital arm of Grameen Bank's family of enterprises dedicated to poverty alleviation in Bangladesh. Its emphasis is on providing finance to ventures that are risky, technology-oriented and otherwise deprived of financing from existing formal landing institutions. Grameen Fund started operations in February 1994.

Grameen Krishi Foundation
In 1991, the Grameen Krishi Foundation (GKF) was established to continue and expand upon the work which began in 1988 as Grameen Bank's Rangpur-Dinajpur Deep Tubewell Project. GKF works with farmers in northern Bangladesh and Tangail District to improve irrigation facilities, cultivation activities, seed production and other services that benefit farmers' lives. Support includes credit, dairy/poultry, fish production, technology transfer, women's development, and marketing programs.

Grameen Motsho Foundation
Grameen Motsho ("Fisheries") Foundation (GMF) was established in February 1994 and focuses on interventions in the fishery industry in order to create opportunities for the poor. Activities include undertaking production, transportation, storage, and marketing of fish to bring improvement to the quality of life for the poor, and planning, organizing and operating fisheries and fishery-based enterprises which help to promote employment, income generation, professional and management skills.

Grameen Kalyan
Grameen Kalyan ("Rural Welfare") was registered with the Registrar of the Joint Stock Companies in November 1996. The objective of the company is to provide financial support in the form of loans and grants to the staff and members of Grameen Bank and their families. These funds will promote improved health services and centres, education and training facilities, new and appropriate technologies and other useful services that will help to alleviate poverty for Grameen Bank members and staff.

Grameen Shamogree
Grameen Shamogree ("Rural Products") was registered in January 1996. Its purpose it to market Bangladeshi products throughout the country and around the world, especially in labour-intensive industries (hand-loom, cottage industries, agricultural products). Various enterprises have been undertaken as a part of Grameen Shamogree, including a printing and packaging industry, a cold storage and two display sales centers for marketing fabric, garments, handicrafts, etc.

Grameen Telecom and GrameenPhone (www.grameenphone.com)
Grameen Telecom (GTC) is a non-profit organization that owns 35% of the shares of GrameenPhone Ltd. (GP), a private sector, urban cellular telephone company that was awarded a nation-wide cellular license in November 1996. GTC buys airtime in bulk from GrameenPhone and passes on most of the savings to its Village Phone (VP) operators, making use of Grameen Bank's extensive network (1,140 branches spread over 39,346 villages) and its loan collection system to collect revenue from the VP operators. GTC is using GSM (Global System for Mobile Communication) cellular telephone technology at the village level, taking advantage of the GP-installed urban capacity. GP leases and operates a 1,800km-long optical fibre cable from Bangladesh Railroad, effectively providing a parallel nation-wide network to the one operated by the state monopoly BTTB (Bangladesh Telegraph and Telephone Board).

Eventually, GTC will become the major shareholder of GrameenPhone, making the Grameen Bank members themselves the owners of GP (For more information on GTC and GP, please see Section 2.2 below).

Grameen Shakti
Grameen Shakti (GS) is a not-for-profit rural power company whose purpose is to supply renewable energy to unelectrified villages in Bangladesh. GS expects not only to provide renewable energy services, but also to create employment and income-generation opportunities in rural Bangladesh. GS will focus on supply, marketing, sales, testing and development of renewable energy systems of solar PV, biogas, and wind turbines.

Grameen Cybernet Ltd. (www.citechco.net)
Grameen Cybernet Ltd. commenced operation in July 1996 and is currently the largest Internet Service Provider in Bangladesh. It is a joint venture between Grameen Fund and CITech Ltd., a well-known private computer and information technology distributor. The company boasts over 6000 clients in various sectors, offering dial-up Internet access, technical support, web consulting and a help desk.

Grameen Communications
Grameen Communications is a not-for-profit company that aims to increase awareness and promote the use of information on the Internet for improving education, research, social welfare, health and sanitation in Bangladesh. To do this, Grameen Communications organizes regular seminars, workshops, training programs and projects utilizing the Internet both at the premises of Grameen Communications and at client sites. Educational, research, social, non-government and government institutes are able to exchange academic, statistical and research information among themselves in large volume at affordable prices.

Grameen Communications employee working on computer
at Madhupur Village Computer and Internet Programme pilot site

A pilot Village Computer and Internet Programme was launched on 1 June 1999 in Madhupur village, Tangail district by Grameen Communications. This project is meant in part to provide low-cost computer training to villagers in order to improve their skills and opportunities for jobs. Grameen Communications rents one room from the Grameen Bank branch and has equipped it with several computers, a modem and a dial-up Internet connection using a BRTA phone line. Visitors are able to send electronic mail messages to relatives overseas for a moderate price of 15 Taka per page of text and 8 Taka per page for receiving email printouts. If any image needs to be scanned and then sent through email, they charge 15 Taka per minute for sending the image. Using a scanner, customers may send original hand-written letters or documents, and a digital camera is available to send photographs. [see related video clip - 338K]

The young team is experimenting with great enthusiasm and a very slow connection to the Internet at less than 2400 baud. In November 1999, a total of 33 email messages were sent through the pilot site, while a total of 27 email messages were received. Farmers are interested in learning more about how the technology may help them to avoid middlemen by connecting directly with buyers and to learn about prices of commodities in Dhaka and other markets. They are now planning to set up a new computer laboratory, which will be meant mostly for the use of local schools and colleges. Charges for such uses will be settled through negotiation. For this, they are now looking for new premises within Modhupur, where they plan to shift their present facilities. Along similar lines of their pilot project, Grameen Communications is now thinking of setting up such facilities at two new locations, most probably in Jamalpur and Comilla districts. This is a beginning, and a very significant one! Grameen Communications is trying to improvise new, cost-effective services within the constraints of a very basic telephone infrastructure. Grameen Telecom is considering partnering with Grameen Communications in order to create more such telecentres throughout rural Bangladesh.

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