A Nobel prize for a Banker...

Ryan — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 18:11:00 +0200

...and this is good. Muhammad Yunus, creator of Microcredit, is finally in the spotlight! and rightfully so - to be awarded the most prestigious of awards: the Nobel Peace Prize.

I feel it is important to highlight this event, which proves that one can do some good with the most "capitalistic" of tools. And yes, they are only tools, one tends to overlook that fact.

His idea?

Loan, without any guarantee, small amounts of money (130 dollars on average), to anyone that is not normally allowed in the banks (this is not an image, this is a reality).

In exchange, the controls are very strict: high interest rates (this helps motivate people to repay the loan quickly), and the bank encourages borrowers to be collectively responsible.

In his country, Bangladesh, this has gone on for over 30 years now, and this success is one of the bases of the renaissance of this state, which was once absolutely synonymous with poverty.

I feel that there is an important detail in this: 97% of the borrowers are women. They are decidedly more intelligent then us of the opposite sex...even if this is not always an accepted idea.

And there it is! Sometimes it feels good to speak of other things than just domain names, and our actions are actions are definitely going in the right direction.

Gandi Bar - take action

A Nobel prize for a Banker...