Grameen Bank was founded in 1983 with the goal of helping poor people in Bangladesh and around the world, by providing credit to the poor, with small loans to aid them in establishing their own businesses. The bank grew rapidly and has received a lot of acclaim as a solution to poverty.

Although economist Muhammad Yunus received the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize for founding Grameen, critics say that this model has actually created a debt trap for some of the poor it tried to help. There were also isolated reports that lenders had repeatedly harassed borrowers, and that some of those who had defaulted had been forced to sell their organs to pay back the loans.

The author of the new book A World of Three Zeros: The New Economics of Zero Poverty, Zero Unemployment, and Zero Net Carbon Emissions and the “father” of microfinance, Muhammad Yunus, joins us to discuss Grameen Bank.

More from UpFront on:

YouTube http://aje.io/upfrontYT
Facebook   / ajupfront  
Twitter   / ajupfront  
Website http://aljazeera.com/upfront