Bangladesh's Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus has stepped down from the pioneering microfinance lender he founded, a week after he lost a legal fight against his government-backed sacking, a statement said. The 2006 Nobel winner said he was relinquishing the post of managing director at Grameen Bank and his deputy, Nurjahan Begum, would take over.
"I am taking this step without prejudice to the legal issues raised before the Supreme Court, and in order to prevent undue disruption of the activities of Grameen Bank," he said in a letter released late Thursday. Yunus, 70, was removed as head of the microlender on March 2 by the central bank for exceeding the mandatory retirement age. He defied the order by returning to work and lodging an appeal against the sacking.
But the Supreme Court ruled on May 2 that Grameen Bank was a government institution, not a private bank as Yunus and his lawyers maintained, meaning Yunus must abide by the state's mandatory retirement age of 60. The ruling dashed his last hopes to stay at the helm of the microlender, which has lent more than $10 billion to 8.3 million mostly rural women since its inception in 1983.