STOCKHOLM: Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, whose Grameen Bank has shown that lending money to the poor can be lucrative, said on Wednesday fighting poverty should remain a social business, as profit-making motives can derail the mission.
Yunus, a Bangladeshi economist, was honoured for his programme to lift millions out of poverty through small unsecured loans called micro-credit, an idea that has since spread around the world.
He told a seminar in Stockholm he welcomed larger organisations to also initiate micro-credit systems, but insisted that giving people the chance to become entrepreneurs ''should be a human right, not a business''.
''There are two ways to go when going into micro-credit,'' Yunus said. ''One is the profit-maximizing kind and the other is the social business when you touch people's lives. I see micro-credit as a social business. ... If you can do it with women in Bangladesh you can do it anywhere.''
Grameen Bank was set up in 1983, and now supports around 80 per cent of the poor households in Bangladesh. It is aiming to reach the remaining 20 per cent before 2010. Repayment is based on an honour system, with nearly all loans being paid back.''I always insisted that all human beings are entrepreneurs,'' Yunus said. ''Some have discovered it and some haven't discovered it yet because they didn't get the chance.''
The bank has shown phenomenal growth, adding one new branch per day to its network in 2005 and two per day in the past few months, but Yunus insisted the focus remains on assisting the poor.—AP
