The big news in Bangladesh is the awarding of the Nobel Peace Price winner Professor Muhammad Yunus. Yunus is the original founder of the microfinance policies I mentioned in my blog below, which have now become an international standard in the world abroad. The concept is so mind-blowingly simple but has attained enormous success in the developing world. Direct from the Grameen Foundation:

What is microfinance?

Sometimes called “banking for the poor,” microfinance is an amazingly simple approach that has been proven to empower very poor people around the world to pull themselves out of poverty. Relying on their traditional skills and entrepreneurial instincts, very poor people, mostly women, use small loans (usually less than US$200), other financial services, and support from local organizations called microfinance institutions (MFIs) to start, establish, sustain, or expand very small, self-supporting businesses. A key to microfinance is the recycling of loan dollars. As each loan is repaid–usually within six months to a year–the money is recycled as another loan, thus multiplying the value of each dollar in defeating global poverty, and changing lives and communities.

Pretty innovative, n’est pas? The people here have been more than eager to show their support of Prof. Yunus. His acceptance speeches have been published in both English and Bengali language newspapers and the major coroporations are buying full-page ads congratulating the man. Some of the Bengalis I’ve been meeting over the past weekend who work in development beam with pride when they talk about him: he’s truly a national hero. I can’t help but feel a bit of pride too!