Yunus wins Nobel Peace Prize

Jackfruit · Oct 13, 2006

Bangladeshi pride !

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15246216/?GT1=8618

Yunus wins peace Nobel for anti-poverty efforts
‘I am so so happy,' says Bangladeshi economist and microfinance pioneer
The Associated Press

Updated: 10:26 a.m. CT Oct 13, 2006
OSLO, Norway - Bangladeshi economist Muhammad Yunus and his Grameen Bank won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for their pioneering use of tiny, seemingly insignificant loans — microcredit — to lift millions out of poverty.

Through Yunus’s efforts and those of the bank he founded, poor people around the world, especially women, have been able to buy cows, a few chickens or the cell phone they desperately needed to get ahead.

“Lasting peace cannot be achieved unless large population groups find ways in which to break out of poverty,” the Nobel Committee said in its citation. “Microcredit is one such means. Development from below also serves to advance democracy and human rights.”

Loans of $200 change lives
Yunus, 65, is the first Noble Prize winner from Bangladesh, a poverty-stricken nation of about 141 million people located on the Bay on Bengal.

“I am so so happy, it’s really a great news for the whole nation,” Yunus told The Associated Press shortly after the prize was announced. He was reached by telephone at his home in the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka.

Grameen Bank was the first lender to hand out microcredit, giving very small loans to poor Bangladeshis who did not qualify for loans from conventional banks. No collateral is needed and repayment is based on an honor system.

Anyone can qualify for a loan — the average is about $200 — but recipients are put in groups of five and once two members of the group have borrowed money, the other three must wait for the funds to be repaid before they get a loan.

Grameen, which means rural in the Bengali language, says the method encourages social responsibility. The results are hard to argue with — the bank says it has a 99 percent repayment rate.

Microcredit pioneer
Since Yunus gave out his first loans in 1974, microcredit schemes have spread throughout the developing world and are now considered a key approach to alleviating poverty and spurring development.

Yunus’s told The Associated Press in a 2004 interview that his “eureka moment” came while chatting to a shy woman weaving bamboo stools with calloused fingers.

Sufia Begum was a 21-year-old villager and a mother of three when the economics professor met her in 1974 and asked her how much she earned. She replied that she borrowed about 5 taka (nine cents) from a middleman for the bamboo for each stool.

All but two cents of that went back to the lender.

“I thought to myself, my God, for five takas she has become a slave,” Yunus said in the interview.

“I couldn’t understand how she could be so poor when she was making such beautiful things,” he said.

The following day, he and his students did a survey in the woman’s village, Jobra, and discovered that 43 of the villagers owed a total of about $27.

“I couldn’t take it anymore. I put the $27 out there and told them they could liberate themselves,” he said, and pay him back whenever they could. The idea was to buy their own materials and cut out the middleman.

They all paid him back, day by day, over a year, and his spur-of-the-moment generosity grew into a full-fledged business concept that came to fruition with the founding of Grameen Bank in 1983.

Prize a tribute to women around the world
In the years since, the bank says it has lent $5.72 billion to more than six million Bangladeshis.

Worldwide, microcredit financing is estimated to have helped some 17 million people.

“Yunus and Grameen Bank have shown that even the poorest of the poor can work to bring about their own development,” the Nobel citation said.

Today the bank claims to have 6.6 million borrowers, 97 percent of whom are women, and provides services in more than 70,000 villages in Bangladesh. Its model of micro-financing has inspired similar efforts around the world.

The success has allowed Grameen Bank to expand its credit to include housing loans, financing for irrigation and fisheries as well as traditional savings accounts.

One of Yunus’ aides, Dipal Barua, said the award was an “honor for millions of poor women who have made this possible.”

Yunus and the bank will share in the $1.4 million prize as well as a gold medal and diploma.

The peace prize was the sixth and last Nobel prize announced this year. The others, for physics, chemistry, medicine, literature and economics, were announced in Stockholm, Sweden.

© 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed
Click to expand...

Rocket Fan · Oct 13, 2006

He has done great work.

Go Vanderbilt Economics! (just got my undergrad degree in Economics from Vandy and that is where he got his Ph.D. in Economics).

From his name coming up in classes and studying what he has done some, he really has done some great things.

Yaozer · Oct 13, 2006

Congrats to him! I just switched my major from Econ to Comm... maybe I'll switch back.. but Comm is much too fun..

Jackfruit · Oct 13, 2006

I would have been happy with him winning the Prize in Economics, but I would have never even imagined him winning the Peace Prize! This is a great day for Bangladesh!

Rocket Fan · Oct 13, 2006

He's done great work. Like I said, I was familiar with what he did since he has the Vanderbilt connection, but hopefully this will allow people around the world to learn about his work.

pirc1 · Oct 13, 2006

Great for him! There should be more help for the poor people in the world!

Forums

Yunus wins Nobel Peace Prize

Jackfruit Member

Rocket Fan Member

Yaozer Member

Jackfruit Member

Rocket Fan Member

pirc1 Member

Share This Page

About ClutchFans

Rockets Content

Support ClutchFans!