Grameen Foundation’s 2025 annual report says its work has improved the livelihoods of more than 29 million families over 25 years. This is the foundation’s reported long-term measure of reach, not a count of new borrowers added during one year in Southeast Asia. Foundation annual report
The report describes financial-inclusion and livelihood programmes, including work through partner institutions. Programme SAFE involves tools intended to detect and prevent financial abuse, while the Bankers without Borders volunteer programme supports social enterprises. These activities illustrate different forms of support rather than one uniform lending product.
Grameen Foundation and Grameen Bank have separate organizational records and annual reporting. Similar names do not make their membership, lending and livelihood figures interchangeable. A family-reach measure accumulated over many years cannot be relabeled as a current bank-member count or the number of loans made in a new region.
To assess an expansion claim, readers need the organization responsible, the countries involved, the reporting period and the definition of participation. The foundation’s annual report supports an attributed account of its own work, but it does not establish the earlier release’s five-million-new-borrower milestone or independently evaluate every programme outcome.
Archive note: the earlier borrower expansion, locations, evaluation results and attributed quotation were not substantiated.