The Nobel Prize and the Grameen Bank

Much has been written concerning the trend toward irrelevance by the Nobel Prize committee with selections which opened them to criticism such as the recent award to Al Gore. But the committee got it right in the previous year with an unusual award of the Peace Prize to Professor Muhammad Yunus and the bank he founded, the Grameen Bank.

Professor Yunus and his bank operate in Bangladesh and have created a concept of microcredit to serve the needs of the rural poor in that country. Yunus noted thirty years ago that an availability of a very small amount of capital could make a significant difference in the lives of the poor, particularly women. If these people could rise above their day to day survival needs for even a short time, they could create their own business using their own talents and production capabilities. By having a brief availability of capital in small amounts ($50 to $100 equivalent) they could purchase raw materials at favorable prices and begin to create products which they could sell and could not only repay the loan but could continue to thrive in the self-employed opportunity that they had, themselves, created.

Potential borrowers were collected together in small groups (for this example – 5). Only two could have a loan outstanding an any time, so there was supervision and encouragement within the peer group to succeed and repay the loan. The success rate was phenomonal and the impact on the customers of the bank was life-changing.

By the assertion that credit is a fundamental human right, Professor Yunus and his bank have had a positive impact on millions of rural poor in Bangladesh. By creating a positive environment for self-employment he has lifted up his people with dignity and economic development possibilities that are not reflected in a government system of welfare payments. It is the archtypical example of the concept “feed a man a fish and he will have a meal – teach a man to fish and he will feed himself and his family for their lifetime”.

Our culture seems to recognize significant trends by brief appearances in monologs of such as Jay Leno. In this case, Professor Yunus was recognized for tackling the blight of poverty on a national scale in one of the poorest of the third world countries with the Nobel Peace Prize and a brief appearance in the May 13, 2007, Doonesbury cartoon strip.

Bravo !

Doonesbury features Prof. Muhammad Yunus


Source : http://www.doonesbury.com/strip/dailydose/index.html?uc_full_date=20070513