On Aug. 8, Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus returned to his home country of Bangladesh, after the country's president Mohammed Shahabuddin asked him to lead an interim government.

The appointment was applauded by former President of Singapore, Halimah Yacob, in a social media post.

The noble laureate

Halimah wrote about Yunus, saying that while she had never met the economist, he was "well known for his work in micro financing".

Yunus rose to prominence as the "banker to the poor".

Yunus, 84, founded Grameen Bank in the 1980s, offering small loans at low interest rates to the poor, where traditional banks would not.

His efforts were met with significant success and have been replicated in many parts of the world, as reported by CNN.

His efforts were acknowledged in 2006 when he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Powerful models

Halimah paid tribute to his work, which she said she followed closely while serving as a lawyer in Singapore's labour movement.

She also noted that his work empowered not just the poor, but women as well, as they were the main recipients of Yunus' micro loans. 

Yunus microcredit enabled "weak, powerless individuals" to "improve their lives through collective action, and that economic participation was "not the domain of the rich" alone, Halimah said.

Beneficiaries would not just acquire monetary gain, but would also learn to manage their businesses, and gain "experience, confidence, self esteem, and "greater control over their lives".

That, she said, was the "essence of union cooperatives", where low-income workers took collective action by pooling their resources, starting economic activities, and thereby improving their lives and the common good.

"Successful union coops often serve as a powerful model to the global union movement of how labour here enhanced workers’ welfare beyond collective bargaining."

Student protests

Yunus has long been active in politics in addition to economics, and has been a longstanding critic of Bangladesh's former prime minister Sheikh Hasina.

Hasina had been in power for the past 15 years, and had won a controversial election  in January 2024.

But fierce student protests would break out after her government attempted to implement a law that gave relatives of veterans of Bangladesh's 1971 war of independence priority for government jobs.

This was described by opponents as an attempt to codify nepotism, as many of the beneficiaries would have been members of Hasina's own political party.

Hasina would attempt to impose a curfew in order to stem protests, but the army would eventually refuse to enforce the curfew, prompting her to flee the country, as reported by Reuters.

Interim Prime Minister

After Hasina fled the country, student leaders demanded that Yunus lead the interim government or would continue protesting, as reported by Al Jazeera.

Their demands were accepted, and Yunus, who was in Paris for medical treatment, has accepted and returned to the country on Aug. 8.

Reuters quotes him as saying that he would "move ahead" with the "path our students show us".

Meanwhile, President Shahabuddin has also dissolved parliament, and has promised to hold fresh elections as soon as possible.

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Top image via Muhammad Yunus/Facebook