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══════════════════【立報】═══════════════════ |
| 教 育 專 題 深 入 報 導《2006-10-20》 |
| 本期內容 | |
| ◎國際專題：小銀行大功績！孟加拉銀行家 造福千萬窮人 | |
| ◎孟加拉村婦見證鄉村銀行奇蹟 | |
| ◎簡單道理：給魚不如給釣竿 | |
| ◎吾思吾師 找回教師熱情與尊嚴徵文比賽 | |
| 國際專題：小銀行大功績！孟加拉銀行家 造福千萬窮人 | |
| 策劃、編譯■唐澄暐、侯美如 | |
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今年的諾貝爾和平獎竟然頒給一位經濟學家和他的銀行？是的，你沒有聽錯，穆罕默德‧尤努斯（Muhammad Yunus）並不是一位著眼營利的銀行家，對以巧思加惠千萬貧民、被尊稱為「窮人的銀行家」的他來說，這個大獎受之無愧。 尤努斯於1976年創立「鄉村銀行」（Grameen Bank），為窮困的民眾提供信貸，當初成本僅27美元的鄉村銀行，現在透過微型貸款而釋出的金額已高達57億，不但改善上百萬人生活，更成為成功的銀行模範，從美國到烏干達100多個國家競相仿效。尤努斯創辦銀行目的不在累積自己財富，而在消滅貧窮，他的人生哲學在於幫助窮人自助：給一個人一條魚你只能餵飽他一天，但教會他釣魚你就能餵飽他一輩子。因此，當殘障或盲眼的乞丐、甚至懷裡抱著嬰兒的母親向他伸手要錢時，他從來沒有讓他們如願。「當我拒絕他們時感覺真痛苦──有時候感覺糟透了──但我努力抑制自己，我從不施捨任何東西給他們。」兩年前尤努斯在鄉村銀行總部接受《路透社》專訪時這麼說，「我寧願試著幫他們解決問題，而非只能在那天拉他們一把。」 尤努斯和他的銀行共同摘下今年的諾貝爾和平大獎，但鄉村銀行的創始可是非常簡陋的──尤努斯所做的也不過是在吉大港（Chittagong）南方自家附近的村落開始簡單的借貸，當時，42位女性貸得27美元。所有借貸者都面臨利息的問題，而當時尤努斯所做的便是試圖說服當地銀行定期借貸給窮人，但所有的銀行都表示若無保證人或抵押品，一切都不可能。尤努斯則要證明他們都錯了。他開始以小額貸款幫助不符銀行傳統借貸資格的人，以供創業，現在他的鄉村銀行已發放上百萬給660萬借貸者，其中96％都是婦女。他表示，「我很高興當初堅持下去，現在微型貸款這個點子已成為固定制度，並成功證明它的價值，我們已經在銀行體系後放了一個大大的問號，將來銀行界不再是一成不變的了。」 尤努斯在1940年生於吉大港，當時東孟加拉的商業重城，在其父親為金匠的家中共有14個孩子，其中5個死於難產。1974年，一場駭人饑荒橫掃孟加拉，帶走成千上萬條生命，從此改變了他的人生觀；同年一次大學的田野調查更讓他體會，現代經濟理論永遠無法給予窮人社會正義：「當人們在街頭相繼餓死時，我卻在這裡教導高貴的經濟學理論。」尤努斯向為他撰寫傳記《好銀行家」作者之一的喬利斯（Alan Jolis）這麼說，「我開始恨我自己，以及我那自以為知道所有問題答案的高傲。我們這些大學教授都是知識份子，卻沒一個人意識到身邊的貧窮問題。所以我決定讓窮人來當我的老師。」 看到今日微利信貸已在世界各地蓬勃成長，尤努斯感到非常驕傲：「如果窮人也和有錢人擁有同樣的借貸機會，他們也能成功的。」他向《路透社》表示，「別管那些窮人了，他們自己會照顧好自己。你不需要為他們難過流淚，因為他們其實都是很有能力的。」 「為什麼不提供金融服務給窮人？為什麼資訊科技專為富人獨佔？又為什麼我們不自己為貧苦的人們制訂一套規矩？」在這樣的疑問下，尤努斯手下的鄉村銀行作風是非常獨特的：借貸者不需要能作為保人的旁系親屬、或是在如一般銀行制定在第一年繳出20％的利息，另外，借貸隔週就可以開始付還，讓借貸者免於在年底一次付清所有款項的壓力，而對於窮到極點的借貸者，鄉村銀行甚至提供無息貸款，而在孟加拉這樣經濟腐敗的地區，尤努斯仍選擇讓所有的程序每週都在公開場合進行。儘管有那些傳統銀行無法接受的另類規距，鄉村銀行還是成功追回借出金額的99％。 而每一款鄉村銀行借出的款項，回收後94％歸銀行，其餘的6％則為孟加拉政府擁有。對於借貸太小額或太昂貴的批評，尤努斯極力反駁，並表示無意挑起與富有人之間的戰爭，只想濟弱扶傾。「他們想更有錢那不關我的事，他們儘可以去變得更富有。我關心的是變更窮卻又無法改變現況的的窮人。」對尤努斯而言，「就算國內有好幾個比爾蓋茲我都不在乎，幫助社會底層往上爬才是我最重要的職責。」 （路透社） |
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| （回目錄） | |
| 孟加拉村婦見證鄉村銀行奇蹟 | |
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巴尼沙‧卡吞表示，諾貝爾得獎者尤努斯30年在孟加拉創立的小額貸款計劃，讓她從最貧窮的階級拉起，成為一個自立而受到尊敬的人。 住在孟加拉首都達卡北方巴斯塔村的巴尼沙10年前結婚，在丈夫無法找到工作，財務問題逐漸累積的時候，陷入絕望的困境。「我眼見我的人生變得比過去更悽慘」，她對路透社記者說，當時「我夢想的美好人生幾乎要粉碎了」。 但就在此時，忽然出現了一道希望的曙光。她從附近的村莊聽說了尤努斯的婦女小額信貸計畫，便在一個月內向鄰近的「鄉村銀行」借了兩千塔卡（新台幣一千元）。利用這筆錢，她替丈夫買了一台人力車，並開始經營極小型的家禽販賣。10年後，以孟加拉的農村平均來說，巴尼沙已經算是富有。「我有27台人力車，養雞場有3千隻雞，還有一座池塘養魚。」她說：「鄉村銀行那兩千塔卡讓一切都不一樣了。」 為最貧窮者提供小額貸款，以幫助他們自立的鄉村銀行與創辦人尤努斯，上週五共同獲得了諾貝爾和平獎。「我們很高興，帶給我們希望、給我們新生活的人能夠被全球認可。」巴尼沙說：「尤努斯博士給我們錢，讓我們得以生存。」 賣牛奶維生的朱卡‧碧江，就是靠鄉村銀行的貸款才買了這頭乳牛。她的鄰居莎米蘭‧畢比，也是靠著她貸到的錢才能開店。現在她們都有了自己的家、牲畜和可以種植稻米和蔬菜的土地。 村裡還有很多類似的故事，雷貝亞‧畢江、拉齊雅‧畢江和更多的巴斯塔村民，他們在上週日相聚並一起繳還分期貸款。同時，巴斯塔與孟加拉各地的村莊也以發糖果、唱歌跳舞來慶祝尤努斯獲獎。鄉村銀行巴斯塔分行的經理阿布‧卡蘭‧阿札表示，村莊裡80位借貸者，都是婦女。「藉著小額信貸，她們都可以在幾年內改變她們的生活。」（路透社） Banesa Khatun says the microcredit scheme Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus introduced in Bangladesh 30 years ago lifted her from the poorest of the poor to a re-spectable, self-dependent woman. Married 10 years ago, Banesa, was plunged into despair when her husband couldn't find work and financial problems piled up. "I saw my life turning even more miserable," she told Reuters at Basta village, 45 km (30 miles) north of the Bangladesh capital Dhaka, on Sunday. "My dream for a sweet, loving life was almost shattered," she said. But then came a ray of hope. She heard of Yunus' microfinance campaign from women in nearby villages and within a month borrowed 2,000 taka ($30) from the nearest branch of Grameen Bank. With the money the bank loaned her, she bought a rick-shaw for her husband and started a very small poultry busi-ness, After a decade, Banesa now is now rich by Bangladesh rural standards. "I have 27 rickshaws, a poultry firm of 3,000 chickens, a pond for fisheries" she said. "That 2,000 taka from the Grameen Bank made all the difference." Yunus and his Grameen Bank, which offers tiny loans to the poorest to help them become self-employed, were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday. "We are delighted that the man who brought us hope and gave us a new life has been recognized globally," Banesa said. "It was Dr. Yunus who ... gave us money so we could survive." Julekha Begum earns a living selling milk from a cow she bought with Grameen loan. Her neighbor, Samiran Bibi, runs a small shop she started with hers. They both now have their own homes, cattle and land to grow rice and vegetables. Similar stories were told by Rabeya Begum, Razia Begum and other villagers at Basta, where they gathered on Sunday to pay back instalments of their loans. Residents of Basta and villages across Bangladesh have been celebrating Yunus' Nobel prize by distributing sweets, singing and dancing. Abul Kalam Azad, Grameen Bank branch manager at Basta, said they had 80 borrowers -- all women -- in this village. "They all have been able to change their lives in a few years through using microcredit," he told Reuters. REUTERS |
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| （回目錄） | |
| 簡單道理：給魚不如給釣竿 | |
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通常諾貝爾和平獎不應該頒給那些認為窮人應該靠自己爬起來的人。然而，今年實至名歸的獲獎者確實是一個商業組織，而其創辦人尤努斯更是老早就表達了一點也不合乎政治正確的觀點：「鄉村銀行並不認為慈善得以解決貧窮……這只會製造依賴……唯一解決貧窮的方法就是讓每一個人自己發揮出能力與創造力。」 銀行借小錢給村民以創業，就算只要買一頭牛來賣牛奶也行。不用擔保抵押和紀錄，借貸只依靠互信和同儕壓力：5人一組的貸款人，互相保證他人的貸款。還不出錢的人，會遭到社群的排擠。 超過6百萬人從鄉村銀行借錢，銀行也獲利上百萬。其實該銀行的利率比多數銀行高，但由於銀行要求先還本金再還利息，而利率是根據逐漸償還的本金來計算，所以跟其他銀行相比，人們要付的錢比較少。這些貸款讓極度貧窮、未受教育的孟加拉人得以使用銀行，從貧窮中脫身。一開始，創立者要從國際獲得資金進駐，而讓鄉村銀行部分由政府所持有。今天，該銀行已完全私有化，且由借貸者的款項自行營運。 半個世紀以來，有錢的國家與搖滾巨星都專注於救濟工作，以促進這些國家發展。從40年代末期杜魯門的4點計劃開始，除了救濟，更有在共產主義抵達前搶得先機的政治目的。根據聯合國逐步高升的預算和計劃在2015年加倍的援助計畫，可以看出促進貧窮國家發展依舊是最主要的目標。但沒人注意到，撒哈拉以南的非洲過去25年儘管接受了最多的外援，其每人平均所得卻掉了11％。 許多有錢國家政府的物資與訓練計畫，到了那些貧窮國家就完全沒輒。貧困者真正需要的是，一個能夠安心投資營利，不用擔心官僚與法律問題的環境。許多貧窮缺乏教育的地區能夠創造財富，靠的還是企業家精神。瀏覽過去幾年的成功案例，結論已經不證自明：消滅貧窮的最好方式，就是消滅那些阻擋窮人創業的障礙。 半個世紀前，美國人類學者威廉‧曼金跑去住在秘魯利馬周邊滋生的貧民窟。他發現貧窮的人有創業的精神，而且透過自願的合作形式，他們得以提供各種政府無法提供的服務，包括糾紛裁決。他寫了不少學術文章並結論，這些都會區的貧困秘魯人「並非要解決的問題，而是能解決的良藥」。幾年後，人類學家凱斯‧哈特也在肯亞得到一樣的結論。要是世界肯聆聽他們的意見，那些關於促進發展的誤解，那些落入獨裁者與親信在瑞士銀行帳戶的大筆資金，以及現在貧窮地區對救濟物資的依賴，都可以早早避免。 諾貝爾和平獎有一種傾向，通常會頒獎給那些認為財富是零和遊戲的人。他們略帶宿命地認為，世界財富有其必然規律，有國家富有就有國家貧窮，絕不可能均富。但這次尤努斯與鄉村銀行的獲獎，一方面反映了貧富必然相生相存的錯誤觀念，一方面也提醒了世界，消除貧窮靠的不該是救濟，而是創業。 Nobel Peace Prizes are not supposed to go to those who believe the poor can fend for themselves. Yet, this year's worthy winner, the Grameen Bank of Bangladesh, is essentially a commercial operation and its founder, Muhammad Yunus, has clearly spelled out politi-cally incorrect views regarding poverty: "Grameen believes that charity is not an answer to poverty. . . . It creates depen-dency. . . . Unleashing of energy and creativity in each hu-man being is the answer to poverty." The bank lends tiny amounts to village dwellers so they can start small businesses. The scale can be so modest as to involve the purchase of a cow in order to sell milk. No collateral or credit history is required, the system works on trust and peer pressure: Lenders are placed in groups of five, with part of the group guaranteeing the loans of the rest. If a loan is not repaid, the community shuns the borrower. More than six million people have borrowed money from Grameen; the bank makes millions in profit. It charges higher interest rates than most banks, but since the principal is repaid before the interest -- and interest is calculated on the basis of diminishing principal -- borrowers end up paying less than they would pay other banks. Thanks to these loans, which very poor and uneducated Bangladeshis have put to entrepreneurial use, many people have been able to pull themselves out of extreme poverty. At its inception, Grameen Bank was partly owned by the government because the founders figured that was the only way to channel foreign loans from outside sources. Today, it is a totally private and profit-oriented operation in which borrowers themselves own shares. For half a century, wealthy nations -- and rock stars -- have focused on foreign aid as the way to spur development. Foreign aid started with U.S. president Harry Truman's Point Four Program at the end of the 1940s, partly to pre-empt the spread of communism. To judge by ever-increasing budgets and last year's call at the UN for a doubling of aid by 2015, it continues to be the fundamental focus of efforts to bring about prosperity in poor countries. No attention is paid to the fact that in sub-Saharan Africa, the region to which most of the foreign aid has gone in the past quarter of a century, per capita income has dropped by 11 per cent. Numerous government programs involving handouts and training also have failed to do the trick in many countries. What the poor really want is an environment in which un-dertaking a profitable venture is not a bureaucratic and legal nightmare. The world is full of examples of poor and uned-ucated communities that have been able to create wealth, thanks to entrepreneurship. After looking at cases of en-trepreneurial success around the world for the past year, the conclusion is overwhelming: The best way to fight poverty is to eliminate barriers that currently hold back private enter-prise among the poor. Half a century ago, William Mangin, an American an-thropologist, went to live in one of the shantytowns that had sprung up around Lima. He found the poor were en-trepreneurial and that through voluntary co-operation, they were able to provide many of the services the government was not delivering, including the adjudication of disputes. He wrote a number of scholarly papers concluding that these urban, poor Peruvians were "not the problem but the solu-tion." A few years later, anthropologist Keith Hart reached the same conclusion in Kenya. If the world had listened to them, half a century of misguided ideas about development, of useless fund transfers that often ended up in Swiss bank accounts of dictators and their cronies, and of schemes that entrenched dependency might have been avoided. Nobel prizes tend to go to those who think wealth is a ze-ro-sum game whereby rich nations are rich because poor nations are poor. The Nobel award to Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Bank is a good occasion to reflect on the colossal error of judgment the rich have made about the poor and a reminder that enterprise, not aid, is the real answer to poverty. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20061018.wxcogrameen18/BNStory/special Comment/home |
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| （回目錄） | |
| 吾思吾師 找回教師熱情與尊嚴徵文比賽 | |
送舊迎新囉！迎接新的一年，讓我們滿懷感恩的心，感謝過去教導我們、使我們智慧增長的師長，用一千字以內的短文與大家分享溫馨感人的真人實事。全教會贊助入選者稿酬每字2元，來稿請以電子檔寄young@lihpao.co-m﹐附真實姓名﹑身份字號﹑銀行帳號。本報有權刪修來稿﹐來稿者視為同意本報集結出書時﹐不另支稿酬。 |
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