Years ago I read the classic book "The Ugly American" which teaches the power of personal action, appropriate technology, small development projects. It biased me against large capital projects in developing countries which seem to lend themselves to corruption, and which seemed to be the way the US government went about community development.
Today I read in Tom Peters' blog that that the so-called father of microlending won the Noble Peace Prize. I hope many more will take up this approach to development, which is the methodology which most of my friends in the Christian church and mission world are taking:
"Yunus is the father of microlending, one of the most potent tools of ours or any other times. Microlending was long dismissed by the powers that be (the World Bank among them) as being a peanuts idea. Big Loans for Big Projects was the ticket. Yup, big loans for big projects was the ticket for a few good things ... and an unimaginable amount of corruption.
Yunus started Grameen Bank in Bangladesh. A typical first loan is $15. After many a trial and many an error, Grameen ended up granting over 90% of its loans to women. (Women = Reliable. Men = Unreliable.) Lending primarily to women in a Muslim country was, to say the least, no mean feat. Yet Yunus persisted."
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