Cindy is very upset by the decision:
Posted on 10/13/2006 5:47:48 AM PDT by sonsofliberty2000
Bangladeshi economist Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank he founded won the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for grassroots efforts to lift millions out of poverty that earned him the nickname "banker to the poor."
Yunus, 66, set up a new kind of bank in 1976 to lend to the very poorest in his native Bangladesh, particularly women, enabling them to start up small businesses without collateral.
In doing so, he pioneered microcredit, a system copied in more than 100 nations from the United States to Uganda.
"It's very happy news for me and also for the nation. But it has burdened us with further responsibility," he told reporters at his home in the Bangladeshi capital, Dhaka.
"Now the war against poverty will be further intensified across the world. It will consolidate the struggle against poverty through microcredit in most of the countries."
"There should be no poverty, anywhere."
The secretive five-member Norwegian Nobel Committee said the elimination of poverty was a path to peace and democracy.
"Across cultures and civilizations, Yunus and Grameen Bank have shown that even the poorest of the poor can work to bring about their own development," it said in the award citation.
"Lasting peace cannot be achieved unless large population groups find ways in which to break out of poverty. Microcredit is one such means. Development from below also serves to advance democracy and human rights," the committee added.
Yunus and Grameen were surprise picks for the 10 million Swedish crown ($1.36 million) award from a field of 191 candidates. The prize will be handed out in Oslo on December 10.
"This is the last prize. That's what's so special about it ... it's the sky," Yunus told Norwegian television.
Returning from a Fulbright scholarship in the United States, Yunus was shaken by the 1974 Bangladesh famine and headed out into the villages to see what he could do.
He discovered the region's women were in severe debt to extortionate moneylenders. Yunus's initial goal was simply to persuade a local bank manager to give villagers regular credit, which the banker said was impossible without a guarantee.
Yunus set out to prove him wrong and never looked back. Grameen -- the word means "village" or "rural" in the Bangla language -- has lent $5.72 billion since it began. Of this, $5.07 billion has been repaid, a recovery rate of 98.85 percent.
SELF-SUSTAINING
The bank, which has turned a profit in all but three years, lends to 6.6 million people, 96 percent of them women, and has not received donor money in eight years. It counts beggars among its members, giving them interest-free loans and life insurance.
Today the bank is owned by the rural poor it serves, with 94 percent owned by borrowers and the rest by the government.
"In Bangladesh, where nothing works and there's no electricity," Yunus once said, "microcredit works like clockwork."
Nobel Committee Chairman Ole Danbolt Mjoes told Reuters: "This idea was generated in a mostly Muslim country and then fantastically spread to the wle world in a positive way.
He added: "We want to send a signal to the whole world that the fight against poverty is one of the most important things we are doing."
The U.N. aims to halve the share of the world's population living in the deepest poverty, some 1 billion people, by 2015.
Yunus said he was looking forward to visiting Oslo to receive the prize. "Definitely I'm going to come," he said.
Former Australian Foreign Minister Gareth Evans, whose own International Crisis Group had been tipped as a possible winner this year, said Yunus was an "outstanding choice."
"It's been a stunning way of generating income and really changing lives for so many people in the developing world," Evans said of the Grameen Bank's efforts.
"It's one of those inspirational, groundbreaking innovations that only come along every now and again, and I think it's highly appropriate and I congratulate him."
(Additional reporting by Alister Doyle, Sarah Edmonds, Marianne Fronsdal and Wojciech Moskwa in Oslo, Paul Taylor in Brussels)
Well, it's about time! For once the Nobel Committee has chosen someone who is actually deserving of the prize. Although he could have won the prize for Economics also.
Micro-enterprise loans are a fabulous tool!
If you are not aware of what this is all about, check out their website at www.grameen-info.org.
I agree. I got worried when Cindy Sheehan said she had been nominated. This is a well deserved winner.
Fantastic. P.J. O'Rourke talked about this guy in his book "All the Trouble in the World". Seems the banker realizes that the backward strictness of islamic culture is part of what keeps people in his country poor.
This was an excellent idea. One problem jump-starting third world economies is lack of capital. Small-scale lending really helps.
The Grameen Bank has done stellar work in reducing poverty among deserving people in Asia. This is a well-deserved award.
Psst....what's happenning to the Nobel Peace Prize Committee? Weren't they able to find a suitable despot this time around? /sarc
I guess Cindy Sheahans dream just went pffffft
Cindy is very upset by the decision:
While I like these microloans when they are manged properly, what does this have to do with Peace.
I suppose it is possible that these little loans help get a free-enterprise economy working and when it snowballs, the economic development generated keeps people working and trying to make money rather than starting wars and causing trouble.
But Bush should have really gotten the Peace Prize.
The 16 decisions of Grameen Bank
I found it instructive to try to put myself in their place to help understand the point from which these borrowers are starting.
Eliminating poverty has worked so well for peaceful Saudi Arabians that they're exporting Wahabbism world-wide.
Latest news out of Bangladesh: 65,000 Saudi-Funded Madrassahs are churning out the students. Look forward to one of their graduates making an impact near you!
Last year my church ran a presentation about this "micro-lending" work. It is way cool. It doesn't take much money to set someone up in a small business in much of the "third world". Shoe makers, vendors, artisans - these were the people who would borrow a couple of thousand $ or so and get themselves started. Had a good success rate and was making money on the loans (the rates are quite low). I remember thinking at the time I saw this that the person who thought this up and then had the courage to actually try it ought to get some real recognition for doing good in the world. I guess he has.
Bravo to the Nobel Committee!!
The worthiness of this recipient is proven by the kudos coming from Freepers in support of this award to a MUSLIM!!
Puts a big hole in the theory of some that Freepers are a bunch of mindless bigots and haters. Fact is that we will always applaud people who make their own success and add to the world instead of take from it.
I am guessing Bangladesh has no minimum wage laws. This is probably advantageous in that it doesn't price out of the market individuals who could work but whose productivity is less than the minimum wage at that time. Minimum wage laws are another way of telling the poor that they can't have a chance to start low and work their way up because they are unable to start at some low point that is arbitrarily higher than they can manage. Minimum wage laws are just another form of protectionism, which those who have minimum wage jobs or above are protected from competition by those who would accept lesser wages for the same work.
Wait!!!!! This was supposed to go to Cindy Sheehan! Where is Tanya Harding's entourage when you need it? Did the Moveon.org thugs not get to the committee in time?
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