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Grameen Foundation : Who we are : Our Grameen Heritage : Nobel Peace Prize

Professor Muhammad Yunus Wins the Nobel Peace Prize

Statement by Grameen Foundation President Alex Counts
October 13, 2006

Statement by Alex Counts, President of Grameen Foundation on the announcement that Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Bank are the 2006 winners of the Nobel Peace Prize. Counts spent six years in Bangladesh, initially as a Fulbright Scholar with the Grameen Bank, and trained under Professor Yunus. Dr. Yunus is a founding and current member of Grameen Foundation’s board.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Alex Counts is available for interviews. Please contact Kay Hixson at 202-628-3560, ext. 109, or khixson@grameenfoundation.org.

Learn more about Grameen Foundation:

• Our Grameen Bank Heritage
• How we use Grameen Bank's microfinance methods to help the poor
• Where we work around the world
• How you can help

More information about Grameen Bank: Grameen Bank at a Glance by Muhammad Yunus

As someone who has been associated with Professor Muhammad Yunus’ work since 1988, when I was a Fulbright scholar at Grameen Bank, I am overjoyed and exhilarated that he and the Bank have won the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize. This is a proud moment for the microfinance movement and a powerful affirmation for the millions of poor people around the world who have already been touched by this strategy. Professor Yunus is an extraordinary visionary whose unshakeable belief in the power of people to help themselves escape poverty has become a rallying call across the globe. Today, the experiment he launched in 1976 with a mere $27 has swelled into a movement that has reached millions of poor people with financial services. The staff and borrowers of Grameen Bank have responded to his leadership and bold model and created a tremendous success story that is now spreading throughout the world.

More than one billion people are condemned to live on less than US$1 per day. Such a crisis demands tangible solutions, put into practice on a wide scale. It requires leadership from civil society and governments. Microfinance is one of the most powerful solutions to poverty in existence today, and Dr. Yunus is the leader most responsible for developing and implementing it in Bangladesh and globally.

Microfinance is one of the most powerful solutions to poverty in existence today, and Dr. Yunus is the leader most responsible for developing and implementing it in Bangladesh and globally. We hope that this long-overdue and much-deserved recognition is a boost to the microfinance movement which now reaches over 90 million families--but is still just scratching the surface of the need, and the opportunity. The movement will be gathering at the Global Microcredit Summit in Halifax next month to assess progress and adopt new goals. Dr. Yunus will be there along with 2,000 other leaders in the movement, and with this Prize we will all have a stronger wind at our backs.

Professor Yunus’ dream to put poverty in a museum where it belongs continues to be an inspiration to me and to countless others. It is best to hear this story in Dr. Yunus’ own words in his book Banker to the Poor.

With this award, the Nobel Peace Prize committee is sending a powerful message that you cannot have world peace while billions live in abject poverty, and 1,200 children die each hour from preventable diseases. In recognizing this humble but highly accomplished global leader in the fight against poverty, it brings us closer to a day when poverty is not the menace that it is today.

Learn more about Grameen Foundation:

• Our Grameen Bank Heritage
• How we use Grameen Bank's microfinance methods to help the poor
• Where we work around the world
• How you can help

More information about Grameen Bank:

• Grameen Bank at a Glance by Muhammad Yunus

Grameen Foundation : Who we are : Our Grameen Heritage : Nobel Peace Prize