Nobel Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus visited Nepal from 21-23 December to attend in a series of high level meetings on social business and micro finance organized by the Confederation of Nepalese Industries (CNI).

On the first day of his visit, he addressed in a national-level summit of all micro finance practitioners of Nepal attended by 300 participants and organized by the Reserve Bank of Nepal, CNI and Rural Microfinance Development Centre (RMDC). Prime Minister Dr Baturam Bhattarai, who is also the Vice Chairperson of the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) was chief guest at the Summit. Prime Minister Dr Baturam Bhattarai thanked Prof Yunus’ contribution to building microcredit in Nepal. There are currently 200 organizations undertaking microcredit in Nepal reaching more than 1.8 million families according to the statistics at the Rural Microfinance Development Centre, most of them are following the Grameen system with the support from Grameen Trust. The Nepal Microfinance Vision 2015 has targeted to reach out to 3.22 million households by the end of 2015. The Prime Minister also thanked Prof Yunus for his innovative concept of social business as an effective way to tackle social problems. The PM presented formal felicitations to Professor Yunus which stated. >>>

Professor Yunus recommended taking microcredit to the next level in Nepal, by broadening the work include social business, non-dividend companies which solve social problems. He stressed particularly the role of citizen’s especially young people in championing social business. He said "Making money is happiness, but making other people happy is a super happiness".  Other speakers at the event included the Governor of Central Bank of Nepal, among others.

In the evening, Professor Yunus and his delegation was received by HE Ram Baran Yadav, President of Nepal who thanked Professor Yunus for coming to Nepal, and for sharing his experience on microcredit and social business as ways to help Nepal overcome some of its problems. He pledged to work with government to change any laws needed that would help microcredit grow faster. The President also pledged to be the patron for social business in Nepal.

At the end of the day, Professor Muhammad Yunus on behalf of Yunus Centre and Binod Chaudhury, President of Chaudhury Group, announced a collaboration to create a US$ 1 million social business fund in Nepal for creative social businesses that will tackle some of the problems facing Nepal, such as energy, healthcare, empowerment of women, environmental protection and others. Ideas for social businesses will be invited from young people, and the best business plans will be financed by the fund. Chaudhury Group and other businesses will invest in the fund. The Yunus Centre will provide technical support in this initiative.