Nobel Peace Prize to Mr. Yunus and Grameen Bank
Numerous articles and comments about the Nobel Peace Prize. General agreement on a well deserved prize and some questions about microfinance itself.
In an article in The New York Times last Saturday, Celia Dugger summarizes what microcredit is about, mentions some of the criticisms it has received in the past and includes comments from Mr. Yunnus and other economists.
But in interviews yesterday, Mr. Yunus’s skeptics and fans alike credited him and Grameen with helping to fundamentally change the way the world saw the potential of poor people and to popularize the movement to provide financial services to the poor.
“He proved the impossible: that the poor were bankable,” Professor Morduch said.
In BusinessWeek Jeffrey Gangemi writes about what the Nobel means for microcredit and discusses the link between peace, poverty and entrepreneurialism.
Still, when you think of the benefits of small loans, achieving peace and stability isn't the first idea that springs to mind. But it is exactly what Yunus, 66, is aiming for. While he may not be brokering treaties, he's actually promoting peace by uprooting one of the root causes of conflict: poverty. At the same time, he's demonstrating how effective entrepreneurialism can be.
And in Bangladesh the Prize is seen as a great honour for the country.
Winner of Nobel Peace Prize 2006 Professor Dr. Muhammad Yunus Friday termed the award 'a great honour' for the country, where he pioneered micro credit programmes to help reduce poverty.
'I feel extremely good to hear the news. It's a great honour not only for me but for entire Bangladesh,' he told local journalists at his modest Mirpur apartment immediately after hearing the news at around 3 pm.
'I've brought honour for the country. Now my first job is to eliminate its poverty,' said an emotion-choked Yunus, adding that he has been working for reducing poverty through micro-finance programmes.
Yunus came to know of the news over a telephone call from the Nobel authority in Norway, but had to hold the receiver for about 10 minutes. 'I'm delighted, really delighted they have endorsed a dream to achieve a poverty-free world,' he said.
The 65-year-old economist, who is the first Noble Prize winner from the country, appeared before the local press accompanied by his physicist wife Afrozi Yunus and daughter Deena Afroz Yunus at the lawn of his home.
He was seen embracing his near and dear ones and admirers who rushed to his home. The prizewinner was seen smiling, but could not hold a few drops of tears of joy. Hundreds of people thronged the home of the Nobel laureate to congratulate him with flowers, causing traffic congestion in the locality. Replying to a question, Prof. Yunus said poverty would be eliminated through strengthening the economic growth, which will ultimately establish peace in the country.
He said he would use the prize money looking for more innovative ways of getting poor people into business.
(Via United News of Bangladesh Limited / Factiva. Oct. 13 2006)
Audeamus includes many more related links.
On knowledge sharing
Koichiro Matsuura, Director-General of UNESCO, writes in the Jakarta Post about Knowledge sharing and its importance in the fight against poverty. "Is knowledge sharing a utopia, the international community's new buzz word? We do not think so".
(Via Factiva, Oct. 14 2006)
On Elections in Ecuador
The Economist describes Rafael Correa as "An enigmatic leftist".
In today's Miami Herald, a comment on the first results and the upcoming runoff between a businessman and an economist.
Wed, 02/07/2007 - 03:50
Nobel Laureate Dr. Yunus : Let charity begin at home
In a recent interview with a young group of representatives of the Hong Kong Bridge Society, Professor Yunus identified the weak political system as the root cause of corruption and held the political parties responsible for nourishing the same. In his typical style, especially after wearing the current crown of the debated Nobel Peace Prize, he prescribed yet again a poor and wilfully “distracting from the root cause†solution, by asking the children to revolt against their parents by showing strong hatred to them in such cases. Although I do not endorse his ideas or solutions, I would expect him to let charity begin at home in testing his own prescription. Professor Yunus must be aware that an official request has already been made on 10.12.06, in response to an appeal by the Durniti Daman Commission (a new and supposed to be independent version of the former Anticorruption Bureau) to enquire on the allegation of illegally smuggling out of Bangladesh, thousands of crores of taka (worth a few thousand Nobel prize money and the highest-scale corruption in a single sector which evidently made Bangladesh much poorer and the drainage of huge amount of money is still continued) by the Grameen Phone and the Grameen Bank. The complaint also includes illegally snatching sky-high interests by bluffing the 70 lac simple women folk borrowers. The matter was published on 04.12.06 in the Daily Ittefaq too. According to a report published in the daily Ittefaq on 18.12.06, Professor Yunus confessed that a share holder of Grameen Phone is responsible for illegally snatching crores of taka from the poor people of Bangladesh. Grameen Phone was enjoying the monopoly of mobile phone business since 1996. Recently, in the competitive market, they had to drastically reduce the price of their sim cards to Tk. 500/- from Tk.1,50,000/- (!) , call charge per minute to Tk.0.80 from Tk. 7.00, recharge system to monthly/biyearly/yearly basis from only 21 days, which obviously makes the allegation of illegally smuggling out of Bangladesh, thousands of crores of taka justifiable, on the basis of their more than 1-crore subscribers. It is not unknown anymore to anybody that because of the friendship with Mr. Clinton (since his studentship) and Ms. Hillary and the service of President Clinton as the “Chief Publicist†of Professor Yunus and “many other reasons †which pleased (!) the western world, Professor Yunus was a top favorite person to the West. Therefore, the people certainly has the right to ask Professor Yunus, how effective was his influence (backed by the interested powerful western countries) in getting the right of monopoly mobile phone business in the country for Grameen Phone and which government(s) and govt. servant(s) were responsible for giving that gift of monopoly, and why he is admitting all these now after thousands of crores of taka have already been looted out illegally from the poor people of Bangladesh and why didn’t he unveil the conspiracy beforehand. Regarding Grameen Bank, let a research oriented write-up styled as “Grameen Bank : Poverty alleviation or elevation†(1994), published in 1995 in largely circulated dailies and periodicals be referred to. The research work was sent to many places both at home and abroad including Grameen Bank, Ministry of Finance and Bangladesh Bank for their comments and necessary action. Later, many similar write-ups and letters on Grameen Bank and NGO’s have also been published, each in the largely circulated dailies and periodicals in the last more than one decade. But no reply has yet been received from any authority including Grameen Bank. Although, there were many allegations against Grameen Bank in those write-ups and letters, only 4(four) of them are placed today. (1) Effective minimum rate of interest on general loans of Grameen Bank is 36% (correctly 43.63%). (2) It is better to take loans from the blood-sucking money lenders offering loans @ 219% interest than from Grameen Bank, because of the additional hard conditions of Grameen Bank, besides interests. (3) The propaganda that “Grameen Bank gives loan without any security†is nothing but a complete bluff. (4) The Western countries become very happy if a portion of their uncountable and surplus wealth from the sale of arms is reinvested in the exorbitantly high interest oriented poverty business, since they get hardly any place to invest such a huge wealth with guaranteed return. Elaborate discussions have been made in the above mentioned write-ups. In a recent interview with the TV channel-I, Professor Yunus, on the question of money lending at exorbitantly high rate of interest replied “various comments are normal in new kinds of venturesâ€. No, Dr. Yunus, your such answers or even hundreds of foreign Nobel certificates aren’t acceptable answers to the very serious type of allegations against Grameen Bank. Therefore, I would expect the family members of Professor Yunus to revolt and pressurize him either to accept the serious allegations like making the motherland poorer to a great extent and illegally snatching sky-high interests by bluffing 70 lacs of simple women folk borrowers or to face the long over due challenges with courage and honesty, by arranging a seminar in the presence of a patriotic media.
On the question of root causes of corruption, well-planned poverty sustainability and moral degradation programs, discussions have been made in the above mentioned write-ups and also in a recent world wide widely publicized (more than 6090 international sites including Wikipedia and Guardian Unlimited, many commercial CDs have also been brought) article titled “100-Dollar Laptop: UN Secretary General’s Office shouldn’t be used for exploiting the poorâ€.
Nazmul Huda
38/10 Siddheswari Road, Dhaka-1217 nazinvbd@yahoo.com
Tue, 11/14/2006 - 18:03
Hello to all the people who support Muhamad Yunus. You have an opportunity to learn more about his ideas and help at the same time. Ashoka: Inovators for the Public (www.ashoka.org), recently developed a group of films about Social Entrepreneurship, and Yunus is one of the speakers.
Ashoka - just launched an ambitious subtitling project with dotSUB (www.dotsub.com/nobel), a new site that lets you translate films line by line. The plan: volunteers translate one video on Muhammad Yunus and one on Ashoka founder Bill Drayton into 100 languages in time for the Nobel ceremony on December 10th. Go on, translate a few lines (www.dotsub.com/nobel) and learn more about what these Social Entrepreneurs have done. You will be giving people all around the world the opportunity to enjoy and learn from these videos...