GRAMEEN BANK FOUNDER WINS NOBEL PEACE PRIZE
(December 2006)

The Norwegian Nobel Committee has awardED the Nobel Peace Prize for 2006, divided into two equal parts, to Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Bank for their efforts to create economic and social development from below. Grameen Bank (GB) has reversed conventional banking practice by removing the need for collateral and created a banking system based on mutual trust, accountability, participation and creativity. The bank provides credit to the poorest of the poor in rural Bangladesh, without any collateral. As of December 2006, it has 6.91 million borrowers, 97 percent of whom are women.

With 2319 branches, Grameen Bank provides services in 74,462 villages, covering more than 89 percent of the total villages in Bangladesh. Its philosophy is that development from below also serves to advance democracy and human rights.

The Nobel Committee felt that "Muhammad Yunus has shown himself to be a leader who has managed to translate visions into practical action for the benefit of millions of people, not only in Bangladesh, but also in many other countries. Loans to poor people without any financial security had appeared to be an impossible idea. From modest beginnings three decades ago, Yunus has, first and foremost through Grameen Bank, developed micro-credit into an ever more important instrument in the struggle against poverty. Grameen Bank has been a source of ideas and models for the many institutions in the field of micro-credit that have sprung up around the world."

"Micro-credit has proved to be an important liberating force in societies where women in particular have to struggle against repressive social and economic conditions. Economic growth and political democracy can not achieve their full potential unless the female half of humanity participates on an equal footing with the male. "

Yunus's long-term vision is to eliminate poverty in the world. That vision can not be realised by means of micro-credit alone. But Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Bank have shown that, in the continuing efforts to achieve it, micro-credit must play a major part.

ABOUT MUHAMMED YUNUS

Muhammad Yunus was born in 1940 in Chittagong, the business centre of what was then Eastern Bengal. He was the third of 14 children of whom five died in infancy. Educated in Chittagong, he was awarded a Fulbright scholarship and received his Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee. In 1972 he became head of the Economics Department at Chittagong University. He is the founder and managing director of the Grameen Bank. In 1997, Professor Yunus led the world’s first Micro Credit Summit in Washington, DC.