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◦ Lucy Billingsley
    ◦ Peter Cowhey
    ◦ Susan Davis
    ◦ Jennifer Drogula
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    ◦ Paul Maritz
    ◦ Yvette Neier
    ◦ Robert Ottenhoff
    ◦ Chris Pascucci
    ◦ Rosanna Ramos-Velita
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    ◦ Muhammad Yunus
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    ◦ Vikram Gandhi
    ◦ Susan McCaw
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Grameen Foundation : Who we are : Our People : Board Members : Muhammad Yunus

Muhammad Yunus

Recipient of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize, Professor Muhammad Yunus is internationally recognized for his work in poverty alleviation and the empowerment of poor women. Professor Yunus has successfully melded capitalism with social responsibility to create the Grameen Bank, a microcredit institution committed to providing small amounts of working capital to the poor for self-employment. From its origins as an action-research project in 1976, Grameen Bank has grown to provide collateral-free loans to 7.2 million clients in nearly 80,000 villages in Bangladesh and 96% of whom are women. Over the last two decades, Grameen Bank has loaned out over 6.5 billion dollars to the poorest of the poor, while maintaining a repayment rate consistently above 98%. The innovative approach to poverty alleviation pioneered by Professor Yunus in a small village in Bangladesh has inspired a global microcredit movement reaching out to millions of poor women from rural South Africa to inner city Chicago. His autobiography, "Banker to the Poor: Microlending and the Battle Against World Poverty," has been translated in French, Italian, Spanish, English, Japanese, Portuguese, Dutch, Gujarati, Chinese, German, Turkish and Arabic.

• 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.
• See Professor Yunus talk about the Grameen Bank on The Charlie Rose Show (1 hour), The Daily Show (5 minutes - part 1, part 2), and in an interview on CBC (10 minutes)
• Article about Muhammad Yunus by former Grameen Foundation board member Moushumi Khan, at India Currents

Grameen Foundation : Who we are : Our People : Board Members : Muhammad Yunus