Micro credits can solve
poverty
Declaring credit a human
right, Nobel laureate
Muhammad Yunus said
yesterday that the
successful micro-lending
bank he launched in his
native Bangladesh showed
wiping out world poverty was
a goal within reach.
Yunus said Grameen Bank’s
miniscule loans to the
destitute have allowed
people to launch their own
small businesses and lift
themselves out of poverty
without any massive infusion
of outside aid. “Poverty is
an artificial creation of a
system. Poverty is not in
the person,” Yunus said in a
speech in Washington.
The economics professor was
awarded the Nobel Peace
Prize last month jointly
with Grameen Bank, which
began with a loan of $27 and
now lends nearly a billion
dollars a year to the
poorest of the poor.
“Fifty-eight per cent of
Grameen borrowers have moved
out of poverty, and every
year, every month more and
more people are getting out
of poverty,” Yunus told an
audience at the National
Press Club. “If people can
do business and get out of
poverty, what happy news for
the whole world. We can
create a world completely
free of poverty.” He said
conventional financial
institutions and services
were closed to most of the
world’s population,
depriving people of a means
to help themselves.
Read the whole micro credit article
Other micro finance
articles:
micro finance cuts
poverty (16-2-2008)
Nepal hosts micro
finance summit
(11-1-2008)
Microfinance eased the
impact of Maoist
conflict (4-1-2007)
Microfinance success
story from Bangladesh
inspires Nepali women
(2-1-2007)
micro-credits can solve
poverty
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