ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses a prominent practical case for economic self-sufficiency, to Grameen in Bangladesh as a social business. To create a world without poverty, socially-consciousness-driven organizations, so-called social businesses, are necessary. Such organizations, ranging now in the Grameen case from finance to healthcare, housing to nutrition, will need to continually devote their attention and research and development money to those areas of innovation, which will facilitate the development of beneficial social goals. On a microeconomic level, Yunus, based on the Grameen experience, developed the concept of a social business. Micro-credit, for Yunus, ignites the tiny economic engines of the rejected underclass of society, by providing them with the means of securing their own subsistence. Now that the commercial side of the Grameen Bank had proved itself and was actively changing people's lives, thereby providing an underlying basis for self-sufficiency, Yunus wanted to build on this success and expand into other areas.
