On October 13, 2006 Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank were awarded the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize for “their efforts to create economic and social development from below” and in so doing, infuse the spirit of capitalism with a sense of social responsibility (nobelprize.org). This award was the culmination of thirty years of dedicated, inspired, and visionary work which began with the founding of the Grameen Bank movement in 1976. Today, the world knows micro-enterprise as a tool of strategic development to serve under-resourced populations and integrate them into the overarching economy. We owe this knowledge to Professor Yunus who carved out the space necessary to create a self-sustaining bank of peer lenders, independent of donors and external organizations.

When Yunus began his work in Bangladesh during the 1970s there was no existing alternative to conventional banking, an elite luxury which was not available to 2/3 of the world. A vision of opening the economic system that globalization makes possible to everyone, even the poorest of the poor, was unprecedented. His dream became a reality in the Grameen Bank, and his goal was to reach 100 million of the most rural and poor families in Bangladesh by 2005. On November 17, 2006 the United Nations honored Yunus’ grand achievement of that goal. To date, he has reached more than 86% of the rural villages in Bangladesh with the Grameen Bank, of which 97% of borrowers are women. The small loans of $150 on average are used by women to initiate or perpetuate their own businesses. This economic freedom and liberation enabled these women to possess a substantiated sense of self-autonomy and legitimacy as able and successful participators in the market economy.

Professor Yunus has brought not only the material wealth needed to bring families out of the deprecating system of poverty but has also created the space for women and families to socially re-invent themselves. As an Ambassador from Chile says of the Grameen Bank during the ceremony, “The program cultivates self esteem and gives people the accomplishment of achieving their own success and development with their full human rights”. Sometimes the most powerful obstacle in breaking the cycle of poverty is to transcend the socially and personally imposed visions of stagnancy that poverty brings: My mother was poor and uneducated, therefore I am poor and uneducated, and therefore my daughters must all be poor and uneducated…The Grameen Bank brings an end to that cycle, for when a daughter looks upon her mother as a part-owner in a Bank with the ability to provide for herself and her family, she will see her own future in a new light.

On November 17, 2006 I entered the United Nations for the first time. Although I have spent three and a half years attending college in New York and have a profound interest in globalization, international policy, advocacy networks, and intergovernmental institutions I had never been inside the United Nations building. With my NGO pass in hand I crossed the few short blocks from the GYAN headquarters office on 43rd street to the UN. The ceremony was held in one of the conference rooms near the café, and as I filed into the space it became apparent that there were no assigned seats, reserved sections or lines to wait in. Was this how all the UN ceremonies and meetings were? In the address by Mark Malloch Brown, the Deputy Secretary General of the United Nations, he remarked on the special ‘open nature’ of the tribute. As an honor to Professor Yunus, his honoring ceremony was made to be as non-hierarchical as the “man of the people” himself. It was because of the reflection of Yunus’ values and life work that I, a first-timer at the United Nations, was able to sit in the company of ‘friends’ of this magnificent man.

The ceremony was divided between the gracious and inspiring words of Professor Yunus and the praise of his admirers which included several UN Ambassadors, the Deputy Secretary General Mark Malloch Brown and the President of the General Council Haya Rashed Al Khalifa. In his introduction Professor Yunus is referred to as the ‘spokesman’ for the movement of microfinance and Deputy Secretary General Brown explains that his honor links to a whole community of activists who are a part of the success of microfinance. Professor Yunus makes a further effort to separate himself from the spotlight, “All the borrowers of micro-credit are truly honored; they are the true Nobel Laureates”. This statement is evidenced insofar as the borrowers of micro-credit take out loans, pay them back, and provide the solid majority of the deposit money (in the case of Grameen Bank, 67% of deposits come from the borrowers). Although the borrowers themselves are incredibly deserving of the Nobel honor, I believe that Professor Yunus merits additional acknowledgement for having the strategic insight and capability to engineer the system from the ground up.

He stated in his acceptance speech that “peace and poverty eradication are two sides of the same coin…the world’s poor need global attention to attain sustainable peace”. Yunus has always believed that the system of global economy must include everyone. He does not exclude even the poorest of the poor from this consideration; “poverty is not created by the poor people it is created by policies and institutions”. No conventional institution would ever lend money to beggars; a concept still so riddled with suspicion that it made the audience at the UN laugh in disbelief. However, without the tools to enhance their resources and production beggars have been kept immobile and without opportunity to become participating members of economy and society. To help balance the disparity that existed in resource appropriation between the poor classes and the rest of the population, the Grameen Bank started a lending program exclusively for beggars. Interested beggars were given loans to buy merchandise to sell door to door instead of begging. Today there are 84,000 beggars in the Grameen program, of whom many have started to beg less or have left begging completely.

Professor Yunus thanks the UN for aligning with the activists and supporting the seedlings of micro-credit at the beginning; culminating in naming 2005 as the international year of micro-credit to support the 100 million family goal of the Grameen Bank. However, after thanking the UN he urges its members to take a stronger position on micro-credit and bring it throughout the world as a tool to end poverty and reach the said Millennium Development Goals. Today, the Grameen Bank has a new goal: to reach 275 million families by 2015. In his speech thanking Professor Yunus for his noble work an Ambassador from Chile aligns himself behind the conviction that “micro-credit presents a real solution for achieving the MDG (Millennium Development Goals) as it has already proven able to reach set goals...If such programs are further supported (by the UN) there will be much progress made in the way of achieving these MDGs.” For the disbelievers out there Yunus stresses that “funding is not a problem, the institution is the problem” a statement which he surely substantiates in the reality of the Grameen Bank; as it does not rely on any institution to generate and maintain its funding.

There are certain people who posses the kind of radiant energy that one can feel just by being in his or her proximity. Professor Yunus is one of those people. The man was so soft-spoken, so eloquent and gracious, which only enhanced the persuasion and confidence of his project. Too often it is easy to get overwhelmed by poverty: it is so big, there is so much to be done, where to start, no sign of progress...we must need some huge revolutionary answer equally as formidable as the problem of poverty itself to accomplish anything at all. With his soft gaze and strong voice Professor Yunus reminds us that “it is not only the grandeurs that always bring the change”. Although the loans are minimal and for that reason challenge our notions of big change, the impact of micro-credit is revolutionary in its ability to make-over the confidence and expectations of its borrowers and open the eyes of the world to the power of the poor in achieving their own development.

Professor Yunus will give the Nobel Lecture in Peace on December 10, 1:00 p.m. (CET) at the Oslo City Hall in Norway (attendance by invitation only). The lecture will be published on this site at the same time: http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2006/yunus-lecture.html

Leila Orchin
GYAN Intern