Norway: Nobel Peace Prize 2006 awarded to development economist Dr. Muhammed Yunus and Grameen Bank

On a day when much of the world is sitting on the edge of their seats wondering if there is going to be a nuclear confrontation on the Korean peninsula, the Norwegian Nobel Committee reminds us about the kind of world we all should be working hard to build.

Professor Muhammed Yunus, noted economist and champion of the poor for more than 30 years, has been awarded the 2006 Nobel Prize for Peace. The Grameen Bank, started by Dr. Yunus in his home village in Bangladesh in 1976, will be sharing the coveted peace prize with the Vanderbilt University educated economist. The Grameen Bank specializes in providing small loans and financial services to the rural poor of the world, with programs ranging from Asia to the Middle East and Africa, and in Latin America and the Carribean. There are more than a dozen organizations and companies that come under the umbrella of the Grameen family of enterprises offering a variety of services and products. The Grameen Foundation alone serves over 2.2 million people worldwide with their micro-finance programs. A well-known and successful Grameen Foundation technology program is the Village Phone Project. You can learn about how the Village Phone projects work in sub-Saharan Africa by visiting George Conrad’s blog On Safari with El Jorgito and reading his archives from Uganda and Rwanda for 2005/2006.

Dr. Muhammed Yunus is a featured participant in the Principal Voices Project and a good buddy of world economist Dr. Jeffrey Sachs. CNN has some great video reports about Professor Muhammed Yunus and the Grameen Bank and more information can be found at the websites and blogs listed below:

Washington Post - 10/13/06
Bangladesh Economist, Grameen Bank Win Nobel Peace Prize

CNN International
Bankers for poor win peace Nobel – 10/13/06
(Note: see related articles and video clips in this CNN article)

PBS The New Heroes (2005)
Muhammed Yunus and the Grameen Bank

Knowledge @ Wharton (Wharton Business School, Univ. of Pennsylvania)
Muhammed Yunus, Banker to the World’s Poorest Citizens
(Note: PBS Nightly Business Report interview March 09, 2005)

Businessweek Online
Muhammed Yunus: Microfinance Missionary – 12/26/05

NextBillion.net – Microfinance archives
Muhammed Yunis wins Nobel Peace Prize – 10/13/06

Poverty and Growth
World Bank Institute’s Poverty and Growth Program blog
Advances in Development Economics archives

Technorati tags: Nobel Prize Peace development economics economics poverty Bangladesh Global Voices