In 2004, the Norwegian Nobel Committee made the connection between peace and the environment when it awarded that year’s Peace Prize to Kenyan Wangari Maathai (see “30 Million Trees”).  This year the committee made explicit the connection between peace and the economic wellbeing of the poorest people in our world.  The October 13 announcement awarded the “Nobel Peace Prize for 2006, divided into two equal parts, to Muhammed Yunus and Grameen Bank for their efforts to create economic and social development from below.  Lasting peace cannot be achieved unless large population groups find ways in which to break out of poverty.  Micro-credit is one such means.”

Yunus, a native of Bangladesh, studied economics in the United States and returned to his country to teach at the University of Chittagong.  Shortly after he took that post, the country suffered a serious famine and Yunus experienced a personal crisis in the midst of it.  “What is the point of all these splendid economic theories when people around me are dying of hunger?”  He turned to the village near the campus to see how people were living and what their needs were.  When he loaned just $27.00 to a group of 42 villagers to allow them to pay off loans, he saw how far a very little loan could go.  He also saw that there could be an institutional solution, and so, in 1983, he founded the Grameen (literally “Village”) Bank.  It began making very small loans to people who had no hope of obtaining any other credit.  It began to change lives.

Since its opening, it has lent six billion dollars to almost seven million borrowers.  Today, Grameen Bank loans 800 million dollars per year, most of it to women, in loans averaging $100 dollars.  The bank is self-financing; through deposits, the poor people it serves own 94% of the bank.  It serves 73,000 villages in Bangladesh.  It gives collateral-free loans for income generation, micro-enterprise, housing and student loans.  Loans have been used to construct at least 640,000 homes.  The Bank gives 30,000 scholarships and 7,000 student loans every year.  The repayment rate for all types of loans is 99%.

And that is just the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh.  Yunus and the bank are credited with inspiring micro-credit programs in one hundred countries around the world.  According to one report “As of December 31, 2005, 3,133 microcredit institutions have reported reaching 113,261,390 clients, 81,949,036 of whom were among the poorest when they took their first loan. Of these poorest clients, 84.2 percent, or 68,993,027 million, are women. Assuming five persons per family, the 81.9 million poorest clients reached by the end of 2005 affected some 410 million family members.” (Source: http://www.microcreditsummit.org)

And there is a direct correlation with peace and the absence of conflict.  The Human Security Report 2005 states “Indeed, one of the most striking findings to emerge from conflict research is that most wars take place in poor countries, and that as per capita income increases, the risk of war declines.”  In his speech at the presentation of the Prize, Ole Danbolt Mjos declared, “The struggle against poverty is work for peace of the first order.”  Yunus, in his acceptance lecture, concluded, “Once the poor can unleash their energy and creativity, poverty will disappear very quickly.”

Source: www.nobelprize.org

 

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