The Experience of Grameen Bank Housing Program, Bangladesh

This article highlights the Grameen Bank's (GB) efforts to turn poor people's housing dreams into reality. The Bank started as an action research project with the following objectives:

• Extending banking facilities to disadvantaged people;
• Eliminating moneylender exploitation;
• Providing employment opportunities for the unutilized and underutilized;
• Reversing the vicious circle of poverty;
• Making poor men and women financially self-managed.

The Bank strengthened its roots by involving borrowers in the bank's organizational structure and diversifying its development activities.

To encourage participation, the Bank identified various norms and events such as:

• Conducting workshops and training programs for women for increased participation and social mobility;
• Expending extra effort on establishing the norm that a house is a vital investment in health and leads to increased productive capacity;
• Giving loans to those without shelter without any collateral;
• Introducing various housing loans like the Moderate Housing loan, Basic Housing loan, Pre Basic Housing Loan;
• Developing specific house designs considering borrowers' needs while keeping the basic structural components same;
• Defining house specifics like housing technology, concept, design and components of the house such as pillars and structural frame, fencing, floor, sanitary facilities;
• Clearly setting out loan criteria for branch, center and individual loanees.