Abstract
Grameen Bank (GB) is one of the largest NGO working with the socio-economic upliftment of the poor section, specially women of the society. The main focus on the present study is to determine change in livelihood status of women beneficiaries of GB in twenty selected centers of Jaforgonj north of Debidwar branch under Comilla district; and to identify the existing problems faced by GB participants. Data were collected from 100 randomly selected sample (15% of population), out of population size 663 of GB beneficiaries. Data indicated that change in livelihood status scores of the respondents varied from 4 to 24. The average change in livelihood status score was 13.94. The largest proportion (62 percent) of women belonged to medium, compared to 25 percent and 13 percent belong to low and high change in livelihood status categories respectively. Results of t-test on change of livelihood status in three dimensions namely ‘change of farm and house hold materials', ‘change of housing, health and sanitation' and ‘change of annual family income' in terms of ‘before' and ‘after' involvement were found highly significant. Out of 11 selected characteristics, education, annual income, credit availability, communication with GB employee and staff and attitude towards micro-credit program of GB were positively significant and only age and non-localite behaviour were negatively significant with dependent variable of change in livelihood status. Family size, farm size, organizational participation and attitude towards community did not show any significant relationship with change in livelihood status. Problems faced by beneficiaries in respect of ‘lack of sufficient amount of credit' was the most serious problems, credit disbursement delayed was the second problem and the third problem was ‘belief on dogmatism and fatalism' with problem index 199 among the six existing problems. Keywords: Grameen Bank; Micro credit; Livelihood status; Women beneficiaries DOI: 10.3329/jbau.v7i2.4750 J. Bangladesh Agril. Univ. 7(2): 381-386, 2009
Highlights
The Grameen Bank (GB) launched its operation from Jobra and some of the neighboring villages during 1976-1979
Eleven selected characteristics of the women were described as independent variables, which includes, age, educational qualifications, family size, farm size, annual income, credit availability, organizational participation, communication with GB employee and staff, nonlocalite behaviour, attitude towards community, and attitude towards micro-credit program with change in livelihood status
Correlation analysis indicated education, annual income, credit availability, communication with GB employee and staff and attitude towards micro-credit program of GB were positively significant and only age and non-localite behaviour were negatively significant with dependent variable of change in livelihood status
Summary
The GB launched its operation from Jobra (a village adjacent to Chittagong University, Chittagong, Bangladesh ) and some of the neighboring villages during 1976-1979. With the sponsorship of the central bank of the country and support of the nationalized commercial banks, the project was extended to Tangail district (a district north of Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh) in 1979. With the success in Tangail, the project was extended to several other districts in the country (Anon., 2004). GB brought credit to the poor, women, the illiterate, the people who pleaded that they did not know how to invest money and earn an income. Grameen created a methodology and an institution around the financial needs of the poor, and created access to credit on reasonable term enabling the poor to build on their existing skill to earn a better income in each cycle of loans.( Yunus, 1994). Microenterprise development proved its potential in bringing about considerable improvement in incomes of upper poor and non-poor borrowers who are close to the poverty lines (Hulme and Mosley, 1996)
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