The Paradox of Wealth and Poverty Research Paper

The Paradox of Wealth and Poverty - Research Paper Example tion is said to have become wealthier according to the generally accepted measures, a significant portion of the population actually become poorer day by day. This gives rise to a paradoxical situation in which wealth and poverty simultaneously increase in an economy. An attempt in recent years to find a solution to this globally prevalent problem has been the made by nations by implementing the concept of â€Å"Microfinance†, which ensures provision of a wide range of financial services to the very poor. One of such most important financial services is the issue of â€Å"microcredit† to the poor, who are usually unable to get financial support from the conventional credit system due to a number of reasons. This revolutionary financial innovation originated with the establishment of the Grameen Bank by Muhammad Yunus, winner of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize, who had started working on this issue back in the year 1976. This concept is today being applied in the developed co untries like the U.S. as well, where around 37 million people (12.6%) live below the poverty line (Wikipedia). However, it has been observed that replication of the original Grameen Banking model internationally is a very challenging task and large scale implementation of the concept may not be entirely possible. But given the promising results that this microcredit concept has shown, nations all over the world are trying to come up with policies in order to apply the concept to their respective economical and socio-cultural set up. In this essay, I’m going to describe the problem of economic and social inequality that microfinance seeks to address, and then explain in detail the concept of microfinance and microcredit, how did the concept