Jeddah –(IINA)February 26 – Nobel Laureate Prof. Muhammad Yunus plans to introduce his Grameen Bank’s micro credit concept in Saudi Arabia so as to stimulate business growth at the grassroots. The professor, who is on a visit as speaker of the Ninth Jeddah Economic Forum under way here, made the announcement at a reception hosted by the Consulate General of Bangladesh at Al-Salam Holiday Inn on Sunday evening. Prof. Yunus said that Abdul Latif Jameel Company has already applied the micro credit scheme and more companies would be engaged under his plan. Micro credit is the extension of very small loans to the unemployed, to poor entrepreneurs and to others living in poverty that is not considered bankable. These individuals lack collateral, steady employment and a verifiable credit history and therefore cannot meet even the most minimal qualifications to gain access to traditional credit.
In 2006, Prof. Yunus and the bank were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, “for their efforts to create economic and social development from below,” through micro credit. Yunus is the founder of Grameen Bank and its managing director. “If financial resources can be made available to poor people on terms and conditions that are appropriate and reasonable, these millions of small people with their small pursuits can add up and create the biggest development wonder,” the Saudi Gazette reported quoting him.
Addressing the Jeddah Economic Forum yesterday, Prof. Yunus stressed that the society should shoulder responsibility for the poverty among its members. “If anyone has to be blamed for the menace of poverty, it’s the society and it’s unfair economic systems that should be blamed for poverty, not poor people. There is nothing wrong with the poor,” he said. “They’re as good as anybody else. They’re as active as anybody else. They’re as creative as anybody else. They’re as smart as anybody else. Poverty is not created by poor people, it is created by society,” he said.
He also made it loud and clear that poverty is a global phenomenon, not restricted to the Third World in a rebuttal to Alastair Stewart, the moderator, who said that he has done a very good job to elevate poverty in the Third World. Prof. Yunus, a practical visionary, talked about how social entrepreneurship and technical expertise can, together, change the world. He called upon businessmen and other social organizations to help “in creating a world where there are no poor and poverty becomes a thing of the past.” “We should keep poverty in a museum for the coming generation to come and see,” he said. Yunus is the pioneer of micro credit, the process of using collateral-free loans of small amounts to help millions of families out of poverty.
HA/IINA
26 Feb 2008