Nobel Winner: Crisis Can Be an Opportunity

• Miscellaneous
• 12th July 2009
• YC

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The global economic crisis can be an opportunity for positive social change, Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus said during a speech honoring former South African President Nelson Mandela.

Nobel Peace Prize laureates former South African President Nelson Mandela, right, and Muhammad Yunus, left, at the 7th annual Mandela lecture in Johannesburg, Saturday July 11, 2009. In his lecture to mark Mandela's June 18th., 91st birthday, Yunus said the global economic crisis can be an opportunity for positive social change.(AP Photo)

Yunus, who pioneered a micro-financing system for the poor, said the financial meltdown has shown that traditional ways of doing business have not worked. Yunus founded the Grameen Bank three decades ago in Bangladesh, and it is flourishing despite the financial crisis.

He said socially oriented businesses - like his bank and other companies he has created - can be used to provide healthcare, safe drinking water to villages and nutrition to poor children.