Nobel Prize Award

Congratulations to Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank.

Articule by John Acher from Reuters

"OSLO (Reuters) - Bangladeshi economist Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank he founded won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for grassroots efforts to lift millions out of poverty that earned him the nickname of "banker to the poor".

Yunus, 66, set up a new kind of bank in the 1976 to give credit to the very poorest in his native Bangladesh, particularly women, enabling them to start up small businesses without collateral.

In doing so, he invented microcredit, a system that has been copied in more than 100 nations from the United States to Uganda.

"In Bangladesh, where nothing works and there's no electricity," Yunus once said, "microcredit works like clockwork."

The Nobel committee awarded the prize to Yunus and Grameen Bank "for their efforts to create economic and social development from below," it said in its citation.

"Lasting peace cannot be achieved unless large population groups find ways in which to break out of poverty. Microcredit is one such means. Development from below also serves to advance democracy and human rights," it said.

Yunus and Grameen were surprise winners of the 10 million Swedish crown ($1.36 million) award from a field of 191 candidates. The prize will be handed out in Oslo on December 10.

"This is fantastic, unbelievable. Thank you," Yunus, whose autobiography is called "Banker to the Poor," told Norway's NRK television after the announcement. (...)"