GİLA
BENMAYOR
gbenmayor@hurriyet.com.tr
In
the Hurriyet Daily News Gila Benmayor has written about Microcredit Practices
in Turkey.
In Davos this year, I
found the opportunity to listen to, once more, Nobel Peace Prize
Laureate Prof. Muhammad Yunus, the inventor of microcredits and the founder of
Grameen Bank.
I was at his “Regions in Transformation: South Asia” session. He said the
banking system was created to serve the rich not the poor. He said we needed to
create a banking system for the poor because many people do not have access to
the banking system, we know that the system does not cover them and the entire
finance system should be reviewed.
Prof. Yunus’ opinions are extremely important at a time when income inequality
in the world and the gap between the rich and the poor is being questioned more
than ever.
The other day I received a piece of mail from Prof. Aziz Akgül, head of the
Turkey Grameen Microfinance Program, reminding me once more of Yunus.
According to Prof. Akgül, the Grameen Microfinance Program, which gives women
microcredits, issued 500 million Turkish Liras worth of loans between the years
2003 and 2015. The return rate of this amount was almost 100 percent. This
means that women are better debtors than men.
Prof. Akgül said 110 microcredit branches in 67 provinces had reached 150,000
women since 2003 and had given loans to 44,000 women. Even illiterate women are
able to ask for loans ranging from 600 liras to 10,000 liras.
“Those who ask for big loans are not much. I know that among the 44,000 women,
80 percent of them are doing good business,” Akgül said.
The Turkey Grameen Microfinance Program is supported by nearly 30 major
holdings including Özyeğin, Tekfen and Limak, as well as Citibank.
It was only last week when the 8th “Citibank Micro Entrepreneur” competition
was held, Akgül reminded. I asked about the situation in southeastern
Diyarbakır, where 20,000 people have lost their jobs because of intense
fighting, because Akgül had actually launched the Grameen Bank model for the
first time in Diyarbakır in
2003. The model then spread from Diyarbakır to
other provinces.
Akgül said currently 11,000 women were using credits in Diyarbakır and
that except for the Sur neighborhood, where clashes are ongoing, there was not
too many problems.
Because financing was not adequate, they were not able to meet the demands of
microfinances of 16,000 women nationwide.
Women who venture in entrepreneurship predominantly produce in the fields of
handicrafts and home dishes. Their second preferences are commerce.
More precisely, the rate of those women who produce is 38.4 percent, while
those who do commercial activities total 30.8 percent and those who own a
workplace is 20 percent.
Agricultural and animal husbandry rates are quiet low, thus urban segments
demand more microcredits than rural segments.
Prof. Yunus had said microcredits revealed the creative power in people. He
said, “We are supporting creative ideas. Millions of microcredit entrepreneurs
increase our hopes. We are creating an ecosystem where women and children who
are using microcredits could also be affected.”
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