Indian microfinance organizations have reached nearly 50 million borrowers of which 99% are women. Present outstanding loans stand at nearly at Rs 100,000 crores.
The theme of this year’s conference was “Propelling the Growth of the Informal Sector through Microfinance”.
Professor Yunus in his speech congratulated the Sa-Dhan for guiding the sector to achieve a massive outreach with quality service over the past 20 years. He said microfinance has created millions of women entrepreneurs in the rural India. This is going to transform the rural economy from being supplier of labor to the urban economy to being an economy which will compete with urban economy helping to slow down the migration of young people from rural to urban areas.
He urged the leaders of microfinance to extend their entrepreneurship beyond financial sectors into other sectors by creating social businesses, such as, healthcare, water, housing, agriculture-processing industry, retailing, waste management , handicrafts, green energy etc. He narrated the experience of Bangladesh in these sectors through social businesses.
The conference took place in the India Habitat Center in New Delhi. Over 500 delegates from all over India attended the two-day conference.
Professor Yunus was also invited to speak at the Facebook India office where he presented his thoughts on future of technology and his worries about the emergence of artificial intelligence (AI). He thinks if AI remains unregulated it will eliminate human beings from this planet.