Grameen Developments
Bngham Young University Grameen Support Group
No. 4

January 1998

David M. Kennedy Center for International Studies

"There are 1.3 billion people on this planet who go through the extreme misery of poverty. If we could somehow bnng credit to them, they would take charge of their own lives. They would take responsibility and change their own lives. Why don't we do it?"

-Muhammad Yunus

The BYU Rocky Mountain Microcredit Conference
Aims of the Conference

Microcredit is providing small- scale loans to the poor, enabling them to start or support small-scale enterprises. According to the World Bank, there are over 900 institutions in 101 countries extending microcredit loans to poor borrowers. With the funds borrowed through microcredit programs, many of the poorest in the world have been able to start microenterprises, allowing them to improve their standard of living and to escape the suffering of extreme poverty. Within the international development community, microcredit has become one of the most prominent and effective vehicles to deliver long-term economic assistance to the poor. In an effort to build on and advance the growing prominence of microcredit, we hope to bring together a variety of development institutions and interested individuals from the Rocky Mountain region to discuss various aspects of microcredit and to build microcredit networks. The major objectives of the conference are the following:

- Inform BYU and surrounding communities on the concept, aims and methodologies of microcredit;

- Instill a desire within BYU and surrounding communities to become more involved in development and microcredit activities;

- Create support for the development programs offered in the Marriott School of Management and the Kennedy Center for International Studies.

There is a tradition of interest and participation in humanitarian assistance at BYU, in its surrounding communities, and in the LDS Church. We envision the Rocky Mountain Microcredit Conference to be a valuable vehicle for informing the relevant population about microcredit and for providing valuable exposure for the development efforts and programs at BYU.

The microcredit movement will take its place in a long and venerable lineage; anti-slavery, women's suffrage, civil rights. . . and anti-apartheid, as the next step in the unleashing of human potential.

-Microcredit Summit Draft Declaration

 Opportunities for Students

 The Rocky Mountain Microcredit Conference in February will serve many functions. On a selfish note, I think it appropriate to discuss what we as students are going to gain from our participation in it. We often ask and are asked questions like these:
"How can I as a student get involved in some substantive ways in Grameen or programs like it?"

"What are some future career options for me in microcredit-based development?"

"How can I continue to be involved in these causes later on in life, after my family and career are already established?"

At the conference, questions like these will be answered by professionals working in the development and microcredit fields, and it will be a great opportunity for those of us looking to further our careers to do some real networking with the right people. We will have ample opportunities to make great career contacts and test the water in several microcredit-related fields in international development.

In addition, we will be able to learn from the various panels and speakers exactly how a successful microcredit system functions, and we anticipate hearing from several local administrators about what microcredit is doing in nearby cities and Indian reservations. This is exciting stuff, very close to home. We hope to see our campus group leave this conference much more educated in microcredit and development. We would also like to see Grameen Support Group members lining up internships and making lasting connections for their future careers. See you there!

-Daniel Ellsworth

Article Review
Taken from Gow, David D. "The Anthropology of Development:
Discourse, Agency, and Culture." Anthropological Quarterly 69
(July 1996): 165-173.

With the microcredit conference in mind, l am taking the liberty of introducing some of the ideas found in Gow's review of two significant works on development (Mark Hobart, ed. An Anthropological Critique of Development: The Growth of Igonorance. New York: Routledge, 1993; and Arturo Escobar. Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the Third World. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995), rather than writing my own article review. Drawing on Escobar's work, Gow explains two significant criticisms.

First, language, especially the written language of official studies, internal evaluations, tracks on development technique, and so forth, is far from neutral. The words we speak and the descriptions we employ have the power to create binding and self- realizing relationships. To use Gow's words: "To understand development discourse, we must examine the relations among the various elements that constitute the discourse, rather than the element per se, since it is this system that determines what can be thought and what can be said" (167).

Second, Gow places in context Escobar's observation of "the problemization of poverty: the equations of poverty with underdevelopment." I have long been curious about the definition of poverty. Obviously, people have long suffered the effects of want and deprivation, yet poverty as an artifact of modernity is of a different nature from this historic poverty. As a social product of modernity, poverty is a process by which people are taught to be poor - and they behave accordingly. It seems to me that the language of knowledge has very tangible results.
in conclusion, Gow states three potential pursuits of the study of development. First, we must be conscious of the development discourse as the institution in which we are engaged practices it. Second, we need to be more focused on the actual process of our development programs. Too many failures are hidden in the shadow of unintended consequences, which seem to be the majority of our development effects. Last, Gow contends that the practice and study of development must broaden beyond economic, social, and political relationships to provide space for "multicultural hybrids."

As you attend the conference, consider how the words we use constrain the possibility of creative solutions. Apply Gow's recommendations to discover new spaces between the economics of money generation in the informal economy and the manifold ramifications of development in the lives of our friends we are trying to help.

-Matthew Wood

Calendar of Events

Rocky Mountain Microcredit Conference

Thursday - Friday

5-6 February

BYU Wilkinson Center

 A Summary of the World

If we could, at this time, shrink the Earth's population to a village of precisely 100 people, with all existing human ratios remaining the same, it would look like this:

- There would be 57 Asians, 21 Europeans, 14 from the Western Hemisphere (North and South), and 8 Africans.

- 70 would be non- white, 30 white. 70 would be non- Christian, 30 Christian.

- 50 percent of the entire world wealth would be in the hands of only 6 people; All 6 would be citizens of the United States.

- 70 would be unable to read.

- 50 would suffer from malnutrition.

- 80 would live in sub-standard housing.

- Only 1 would have a college education.

When one considers our world from such an incredibly compressed perspective, the need for both tolerance and understanding becomes glaringly apparent.

-Tim Wallace, Department of Agricultural Economics,
University of California, Berkeley.
May 1996.

For More Information:

The BYU Grameen Support Group meets every Thursday at 8:30 p.m. in 238 HRCB.

BYU Grameen Support Office: (801) 378-3548

or email: microcredit@byu.edu

Send any questions or comments to chittagong@byu.edu

Page sponsored by: David M. Kennedy Center for International Studies