Bangladesh microbanker Yunus wins Nobel Peace Prize

Oct 13, 2006, 14:59 GMT

Oslo - In a surprise move, the Nobel Peace Prize for 2006 was awarded to Muhammad Yunus, the 66-year-old Bangladeshi behind the Grameen Movement micro-banking system that has helped millions in his homeland, it was announced Friday in Oslo.

Yunus jointly shared the award, worth 10 million kronor (1.37 million dollars), with the non-profit Grameen Bank, which means 'rural bank' in Bengali.

The five-member Norwegian Nobel Committee cited Yunus and Grameen Bank 'for their efforts to create economic and social development from below.'

The committee underlined that 'lasting peace cannot be achieved unless large population groups find ways in which to break out of poverty. Micro-credit is one such means. Development from below also serves to advance democracy and human rights.'

The bank was created in 1976, and has focused on offering credits to the poor - nine in 10 of whom are women - and has since spread to some 100 countries worldwide.

'I am absolutely delighted, I can't believe it has really happened,' Yunus told Norwegian broadcaster NRK. 'I am so happy,' Yunus said, saying the prize was a dream and it was 'fantastic news.'

The award would give more energy in the struggle to create a 'poverty-free world,' Yunus said, adding some 100 million families had benefited from the microcredit system.

By 2015, the target date for the so called Millenium Development Goals, the aim was to boost the number to 175 million, Yunus said.

'The poorest get loans, this has to do with human rights and human dignity,' committee chairman Ole Danbolt Mjos said. 'We wish to send a signal to the whole world that the fight against poverty is the most important thing.'

The Grameen Movement has also evolved spin-offs including Grameen Phone, which is majority-owned by Norwegian telecoms group Telenor.

It has introduced a village handset where a villager, often a woman, buys a handset with a small loan from Grameen Bank. The loan is repaid by renting out the handset on a per-minute basis to other villagers.

Norwegian politicians including Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg and International Development Minister Erik Solheim welcomed the choice, as well as the Nobel committee's moves in recent years to broaden the concept of peace.

That was signalled with the 2004 choice of Kenyan human rights activists and environmentalist Wangari Maathai, who was cited for 'her contribution to sustainable development.'

Yunus had not figured in speculation where favourites this year included former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari who helped broker a peace deal in Aceh, and exiled Chinese human rights activist Rebiya Kadeer of the Uighur ethnic minority.

The prize is presented on December 10, the anniversary of Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel's death. Yunus said he planned to attend the ceremony in Oslo.

The announcement caps this year's announcements of the Nobel prizes endowed by Swedish dynamite inventor Nobel.

At the time of Nobel's 1896 death, Sweden and Norway were a union, explaining why the science and literature prizes are awarded in Stockholm and the peace prize is awarded in Oslo.

On Thursday, Turkish author Orhan Pamuk was awarded the literature prize. Last week, Andrew Fire and Craig Mello were awarded the medicine prize, fellow Americans John Mather and George Smoot shared the physics prize and Roger Kornberg was awarded the chemistry prize.

New York-based professor Edmund Phelps of Columbia University on Monday improved the US record when he was awarded the economics prize, a prize that was not mentioned in Nobel's will.

The 2005 peace prize was shared by the UN nuclear watchdog the International Atomic Energy Agency and its head, Mohamed ElBaradei, for efforts to prevent nuclear energy from being used for military purposes.