'Banker of the poor'

As always, the Nobel Peace Prize often contains many unexpected elements at the last minute. This year's award is not out of that rule when the winners do not belong to the candidates who are highly rated by the press.

Yesterday, the Norwegian Nobel Committee officially honored economist Muhammad Yunus, 66, and Grameen Bank (GB) because he founded for 'efforts to help economic and social development' for the poor. in Bangladesh.

'In order to have sustainable peace, most people must have a way out of poverty. Small credit is one of those ways, ' explained Ole Danbolt Mjoes, chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, explaining the choices of five members on the committee before a list of 191 candidates.

Muhammad Yunus was born in Chittagong in a family of up to 14 children, of whom five died from childhood due to poor living conditions. Yunus rushed to study and graduate at Vanderbilt University (USA). He began his eradication work after seeing the famine in Bangladesh in 1974 killed thousands of people. His first activity was to borrow money from pocket money of about $ 27 for women who work on bamboo products in Jobra village near Chittagong University where he taught.

"The banker of the poor" Muhammad Yunus received the World Information Society at Geneva on May 17. So far he has received about 60 awards and honors around the world for his activities (Photo: AFP)

In 1976, he founded Grameen Bank to help the poor with small loans of $ 50-100 without requiring collateral or security. GB created a new mode of operation as 'solidarity groups' for members to manage loan payments and to support each other.

As work progressed, GB developed other small credit systems and developed home loan programs as well as financial support for small projects of aquaculture, irrigation and textiles. . Yunus chose the right direction because 'there are no jobs and electricity in Bangladesh but small credit models work very well'.

So far, the total number of people who have borrowed money from GB is 6.61 million and 97% of them are women . Of Bangladesh's 290.03 billion taka (about US $ 5.72 billion) of loans, GB recovered about 258.16 billion taka (about 5.07 billion US dollars), reaching the debt recovery rate. 98.85% - a very high rate in the banking industry. In particular, borrowers from GB currently own 94% of the bank's shares and the remaining 6% are owned by the state. GB's pro-poor credit model has so far been applied in 23 other countries.

Grameen Foundation, founded in 1997 after the bank's success, has now had a global network of about 52 members across 22 countries and has helped about 11 million people in Asia, Africa and the Americas. and the Middle East region.

Yunus was once very famous for his saying that he would strive to eradicate poverty for 'one day our children go to museums to see what poverty is.' It has partly made this dream come true.

THANH TUAN