Its not about the bank: Re-Prototyping our world together

Posted on by September 28, 2009 by Sofia Bustamante

One could be forgiven on August 12, 2009, when Muhammad Yunus was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom Award, as founder of the Grameen Bank, for focusing on the Bank as his main accolade. It is after all one of the few stable banks in the world, and at a point where confidence in the banking sectors is at a global low point, that is no small achievement.

But look beneath the institution, and you will find something that shapes it, which is shaping much more than the bank. Look nearby within the same city, Dhaka, and you will also discover this in another organizational heavyweight, BRAC.

And if you lift your head up away from the ground level of practice and institutions to Bangladesh; you will see a picture of a nation where changes speak for themselves. It is the only country that is on its way to reach the MDGs. It has put itself on the world map for gender equality.

There is a quiet revolution afoot in these lowlands and something called Social Business has everything to do with it. In a country where 10 years ago, a rickshaw driver interviewed on the street would not have wanted his daughter to go into education. Now the contrary is common. A shift in attitude has happened.

Change at this level does not come overnight. It has taken nearly 4 decades. But I believe that these kinds of attitudes, as they embed themselves, are fomenting the destiny of the nation.

So what lies underneath Grameen? And underneath the BRAC phenomenon? And even under Social Business?

I believe it is a simple dedication to keep asking a very simple question: “What creates poverty and what can we do to transform it?” I have come to think that the simpler the question, the longer its staying power over the years. If you are relentless about a quest, you are likely to achieve it.

I also believe that if you want to transform a system, you have to work with the whole system. It is hard. You have to experiment. You have to have staying power. You cannot short cut this approach. I think that there should be no surprise when real change is not achieved if there is no clear intention at the start.  So those who succeeded are likely to have been relentless in their quest.

So here is the opportunity that London Creative Labs invites you to take up with us: keep the simple question about poverty alive, experiment with prototypes, scale up what works, be relentless, think deeply systemically. Unleash the power of Social Business to transform society.

Sofia Bustamante

Sofia’s vision is that we can address societal challenges systemically rapidly through Social Business. Inspired by Grameen and BRAC in Bangladesh, LondonCreative Labs invites us to innovate disruptively together now.