TheNorwegian Nobel Committee has decided to award the Nobel Peace Prize for2006, divided into two equal parts, to Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Bank for theirefforts to create economic and social development from below. Lasting peace cannot be achieved unless large population groups find ways in which to break outof poverty. Micro-credit is one such means. Development from below also servesto advance democracy and human rights.
Muhammad Yunus has shown himself to be a leader who has managed to translatevisions into practical action for the benefit of millions of people, not only inBangladesh, but also in many other countries. Loans to poor people without anyfinancial security had appeared to be an impossible idea. From modest beginningsthree decades ago, Yunus has, first and foremost through Grameen Bank, developedmicro-credit into an ever more important instrument in the struggle againstpoverty. Grameen Bank has been a source of ideas and models for the manyinstitutions in the field of micro-credit that have sprung up around the world.
Every single individual on earth has both the potential and the right to livea decent life. Across cultures and civilizations, Yunus and Grameen Bank haveshown that even the poorest of the poor can work to bring about their owndevelopment.
Micro-credit has proved to be an important liberating force in societieswhere women in particular have to struggle against repressive social andeconomic conditions. Economic growth and political democracy can not achievetheir full potential unless the female half of humanity participates on an equalfooting with the male.
Yunus's long-term vision is to eliminate poverty in the world. That visioncan not be realised by means of micro-credit alone. But Muhammad Yunus andGrameen Bank have shown that, in the continuing efforts to achieve it,micro-credit must play a major part.
GrameenBank provides the following biographical details about Professor Yunus
As founder of the GrameenMovement, Professor Muhammad Yunus is a revolutionary. His ideas couplecapitalism with social responsibility and have changed the face of ruraleconomic and social development forever.
Professor Yunus is responsible for many innovative programs benefiting the ruralpoor. In 1974, he pioneered the idea of Gram Sarker (village government) as aform of local government based on the participation of rural people. Thisconcept proved successful and was adopted by the Bangladeshi government in 1980.In 1978, he received the President's award for Tebhaga Khamar (a system ofcooperative three-share farming, which the Bangladeshi government adopted as thePackaged Input Program in 1977).
A Fulbright Scholar at Vanderbilt University, Professor Yunus received his Ph.D.in Economics in 1969. Later that year, he became an assistant professor ofEconomics at Middle Tennessee State University, before returning to Bangladeshwhere he joined the Economics Department at Chittagong University.
The UN secretary general appointed Professor Yunus to the International AdvisoryGroup for the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing from 1993 to 1995.Professor Yunus has also served on the Global Commission of Women's Health(1993-1995), the Advisory Council for Sustainable Economic Development(1993-present), and the UN Expert Group on Women and Finance. He also serves asthe chair of the Policy Advisory Group (PAG) of Consultative Group to Assist thePoorest (CGAP). Yunus has also served on many committees and commissions dealingwith education, population, health, disaster prevention, banking, anddevelopment programs. He is currently on the boards of many internationalorganizations including Amanah Ikhtiar Malaysia (a Grameen replication project),the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines, and Credit andSavings for the Poor in Malayasia. Professor Yunus also sits on the board of theCalvert World Values Fund, the Foundation for International CommunityAssistance, the National Council for Freedom From Hunger, RESULTS and theInternational Council of Ashoka Foundation, all of which are located in the US.
Professor Yunus has received the following International awards: the RamonMagsaysay Award (1984) from Manila; the Aga Khan Award for Architecture (1989)from Geneva; the Mohamed Shabdeen Award for Science (1993) from Sri Lanka; andthe World Food Prize by World Food Prize Foundation (1994) from the US. WithinBangladesh, he has received the President's Award (1978), Central Bank Award(1985), and the Independence Day Award (1987), the nation's highest award.
