Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus (C) speaks as Steve Gunderson (L), president and CEO, Council on Foundations and Rick Warren (R), Pastor, Saddleback Church listen, at the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) in New York on Friday. Photo: AFP

Reuters India Thu Oct 2, 2008 8:07pm IST

GENEVA, Oct 2 (Reuters) - The global credit crisis is not making it harder for poor-country entrepreneurs to access the tiny loans they need to start and grow businesses, banking executives said on Thursday.

Microfinance -- which became famous when Bangladeshi economist Muhammad Yunus and his Grameen Bank shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 -- provides small loans to people who lack access to mainstream banking services.

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Miss Xiong Ning, 1978 to Mar 10, 2008, died in a traffic accident on her way to Qinghai to help the poor people there. Below is the translation of a draft letter in Chinese that she wrote to Professor Yunus, which was found among the belongings she left behind.)

Xiongning's Letter to the Nobel Peace Prize Winner Yunus

Dear Professor Muhammad Yunus,

Hello, how are you? First please forgive me if I take the liberty of writing this letter to you. I am a Chinese girl, named Xiongning, 29 years old this year, and born in an ordinary city intellectual family. Since I was young, I have had an ideal that I will set up the same “social conscience-oriented enterprise” as you advocated in Banker to the Poor.

A comprehensive global plan is needed to tackle the high cost of food that threatens the lives of the world's poorest and most vulnerable people

May 16, 2008 6:00 PM

The global food crisis is a dire reality for millions of the world's poor and a major test for the international community. Sustained, generous, wise leadership and broad-based cooperation is required to overcome the crisis and save lives.

Rising food prices have created tremendous pressure in the lives of poor people, for whom basic food can consume as much as two-thirds of their income.

Professor Muhammad Yunus on the cover page of Newsweek as one of the world's Superclass of influential thinkers and personalities of our day.

The Bangladeshi Nobel laureate wins yet another award - this time for contributions to technology. He talks to Fortune about where tech might take the poor.

By David Kirkpatrick

President Nicolas Sarkozy of France received Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus at Elysee Palace in Paris yesterday for a special meeting to discuss microcredit and poverty alleviation strategies for the developing world.

What if you could harness the power of the free market to solve the problems of poverty, hunger, and inequality? To some, it sounds impossible. But Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus is doing exactly that. As founder of Grameen Bank, Yunus pioneered microcredit, the innovative banking program that provides poor people––mainly women––with small loans they use to launch businesses and lift their families out of poverty.

Where you can obtain copy of the book

Reviews on Creating a World Without Poverty

Honorary Doctor of Law degree from University of British Columbia

March 14, 2008

Professor Muhammad Yunus received an honorary Doctor of Law degree in a ceremony at the University of British Columbia when he came to inaugurate the Michael Smith Nobel Lecture. Over 3000 people attended the numerous events in the day long program. The degree ceremony started with Bangladesh and Canada's national anthems, folk songs and traditional dances. Flags were also hoisted to mark the occasion.

Bangladeshi banker to the poor turns the tables on the West 

Vancouver Sun
March 15, 2008   by Don Cayo

It's a shop-worn cliché at best -- the white man trekking off to distant corners of the world to enlighten or enrich. The rich world's better aid and development agencies well know the best help is often to be found far from head office, and the best ideas are apt to come from staff who are plugged into the places and the cultures where they work.

But who better to turn such a dated view completely on its ear than Muhammad Yunus, the Nobel-prize-winning economist. 

Small Loans, Significant Impact

After Success in Poor Nations, Grameen Bank Tries New York

NEW YORK -- "Señoras!" calls the banker, summoning her borrowers to attention at their first loan-repayment meeting.

The small-business borrowers -- day-care providers, clothing sellers, jewelry makers -- crowd into the living room where their children are napping, eating cereal and watching TV.

Khaleej Times:  Yunus urges Bangladeshi workers to abide by rules and regulations in force in Saudi
By Habib Shaikh, Date: 28 February 2008

JEDDAH — The situation of foreigners living and working in any country other than their own is always a tough one and gets touchy depending on the situation, especially when unemployment in the host country increases and crime rate rises, not necessarily because of joblessness.

'Nobel rock star' gets standing ovations at Concordia today
Amy Dalrymple, The Forum Published Saturday, March 08, 2008

MOORHEAD - Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus received three standing ovations this morning from a sold-out crowd at Concordia College.

Yunus, who won the Nobel Peace Price in 2006 for founding the Grameen Bank, delivered the keynote address for the 20th annual Nobel Peace Prize Forum.

“Professor Yunus is a Nobel rock star,” Concordia President Pam Jolicoeur said in her introduction.

Professor Yunus visited Benin on 20 February on invitation of HE Dr Boni Yayi, President of Benin. The government of Benin is launching microfinance for the poor as a national strategy and had invited Professor Yunus to visit this West African nation and share his experiences. Professor Yunus delivered a special lecture at the Palace in the presence of the President, all cabinet ministers and other top policy makers of the country. He also visited special poverty alleviation project which included a grand and colorful meeting with 5000 micro credit borrowers. At the end of his visit, Professor Yunus was decorated in the "Order of Benin" by the Grand Chancellor of Decoration in a ceremony at the Presidential Palace in Cotonou on 20th February 2008.

[Photograph: Professor Muhammad Yunus with President of Benin, Dr Boni Yayi.  The President ceremonially robed  Professor Yunus in national dress at the Presidential Palace on 20 February 2008]

Financial Express Mumbay
Feb 28, 2008     By RAJIV TIKO

When the Grameen Bank and French food major Danone set up Grameen-Danone Foods in early 2006 in Bangladesh, it was not a usual joint venture. Though the initial funding of $1.1 million was to be shared equally by Danone and four Grameen Companies, the venture was designed as a social business enterprise to reduce poverty by offering affordable and healthy nutrition to the poor. The venture provided for payment of 1% token dividend to investors. The Grameen Bank founder, Muhammad Yunus, has quoted the example in his latest book to illustrate his vision of tapping into businesses to solve the problem of worldwide poverty. Since he set up the Grameen Bank way back in 1983, his idea of microcredit has grown into the concept of social business. The accidental banker has unveiled it in detail in his just released book, Creating a World Without Poverty: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism. The new way of doing business has become imperative because governments, multilateral institutions and nonprofits have failed the poor,he says.