Organizing, designing, building and forming of groups and centers of Grameen Bank and its services implementation strategies in Bangladesh

Abstract

The objective of the paper is to narrate the Grameen Bank (GB) group and center organizing, designing, forming, and building tools in Bangladesh and to identify what mistakes the author and his colleagues have made during their journey in GB. It explores how they could do better jobs in organizing, designing, building and forming groups and centers and other activities if they are skilled in the community work ahead of their jobs in GB. The paper discusses different concepts, thoughts and ideas of community organizing, community designing, community building, and different mechanisms of GB loans and savings services for poor in Bangladesh. GB is continuously changes its center organizing and building tools; and developing innovative loans, savings products those are suitable to its borrowers to overcome their poverty. The paper narrates the author and his colleagues’ personal working experience in GB during late 1970s and 1980s. Moreover, the paper incorporates different challenges GB faces like social and economic barriers at the macro and micro level in implementing its services to poor people in Bangladesh at different times; and how GB overcomes these challenges and developed different innovative products and services in its Phase-1 and Phase-11. The narrated history of forming groups and organizing centers of GB and its different loan and savings products evolution process generates new knowledge and evidence in the field of group-based micro-credit. The process of evolution of GB would be a learning lesson for the readers, micro-finance practitioners, researchers and different community organizers in Bangladesh and elsewhere.