【正文】 ed in the field. His training postulated that if people got access to credit they could increase their profitability, or diversify their economic activities, in ways that would allow them to raise their ines. So, if he could lend some poor people his money they could improve their lives and pay him back. Then, he could lend the money to other poor people and thus assist many more people than could be achieved by simply giving his money away. It was an interesting theory, but his initial experiments seemed to show it was invalid. Quite a few of the men and women he lent to did not repay their small loans (sums of US$10 or 20). He thought that this was because they had either used the money unwisely (for consumption or poorly planned microenterprises) or were not trustworthy. As a result, he began to experiment with ways of (i) approving and supervising loans, to ensure they would be used for productive investments, and (ii) selecting trustworthy clients and managing them, so that they would repay their loans. Eventually he came up with a model that worked. This had a number of features: ? Lending to poor, rural women (as they were less likely than men to use loans badly and were more reliable for repayment). ? Organising women into cells of five, that took collective responsibility for each other’s loans (creating social collateral and a peer screening process). ? Establishing Kendro (centres) where six cells (. 30 women) met, at a set time each week, to apply for loans and make repayments. ? Charging a higher rate of interest than government schemes and NGO loans programmes. ? Requiring clients to make pulsory microsavings each week (to create financial discipline and generate financial collateral for groups), and to make promises about their social conduct. ? Simple, standardised products that required regular, small repayments. ? Recruiting and training bright, young graduates to administer services (to minimise corruption). There were many other carefully designed elements of this ‘Grameen model’ (see Fuglesang and Chandler (1986) for details). It certainly appeared to work, and Yunus was able to persuade the staterun Bangladesh Krishi Bank (BKB) to finance and house the experiment. Donor agencies, such as the Ford Foundation, became involved. Expansion and institutionalisation The early success of the Grameen model was matched by Professor Yunus’s personal energy and enthusiasm. But, to expand the Bank he needed more finance and a robust organisational structure. The finance was not too much of a problem. In the early 1980s there were many foreign aid agencies in Bangladesh facing a big problem: most of the grants they made to government agencies were only weakly accounted for and they appeared to achieve little development impact. Achieving an effective organisational structure was, perhaps, more challenging. If he stayed with BKB, then as the Grameen Bank expanded it would be likely to take on the characteristics of the country’s nationalised mercial banks: nepotistic staff recruitment and promotion, financial corruption, the politicisation of the loan portfolio, and an offhand attitude towards clients. The alternatives – registering as a Bank or as a cooperative – were not attractive. So, with great insight and careful politicking, Professor Yunus negotiated the passing of a Grameen Bank Ordinance in 1983. Over the 1980s and early 1990s the Grameen Bank steadily expanded, with large inflows of donor funding. By 1991it had more than one million clients and a growing range of products – housing loans, agricultural loans and others. Alongside this, both the profiles of the Bank and of Yunus became increasingly international. International transfer replication As the 1980s progressed, an increasing amount of Grameen Bank senior management time was devoted to exporting the Grameen Bank model. I first becam