Awarding the Worthy, Nobel Peace Prize 2006
Winner of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize
OSLO, Norway Oct 13, 2006 (AP)— Bangladeshi economist Muhammad Yunus and the bank he founded won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for pioneering the use of microcredit, the extension of small loans to benefit poor entrepreneurs.
Grameen Bank has been instrumental in helping millions of poor Bangladeshis, many of them women, improve their standard of living by letting them borrow tiny sums to start businesses.
Loans go toward buying items such as cows to start a dairy, chickens for an egg business, or cell phones to start businesses where villagers who have no access to phones pay a small fee to make calls.
“Lasting peace can not be achieved unless large population groups find ways in which to break out of poverty,” the Nobel Committee said.
[...] Yunus founded Grameen Bank in 1976, after lending $27 out of his pocket to help 42 women in Bangladesh buy weaving stools.
“They got the weaving stools quickly, they started to weave quickly and they repaid him quickly,” said Ole Danbolt Mjoes, chairman of the committee.
“Yunus and Grameen Bank have shown that even the poorest of the poor can work to bring about their own development,” the Nobel Committee said in its citation.
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.
Though bankers in general are not exactly compassion personified, Professor Yunus seems to have put his whole heart and soul, along with the knowledge, into an admirable project worthy of the world’s recognition and $1.4 million award, certain to end in the right hands.
Congratulations!