Nobel Peace prize winner, Dr. Muhammad Yunus was in Jeddah recently to launch his new book, ‘Creating a World without Poverty'. Farah Mustafa Wadi met him to discuss his vision When a human being focuses on one narrow road -- materialism -- it may lead him down the path of destruction, as seen in the recent financial meltdown. However, if we chart our collective path to progress by concern for our fellow beings, the result may be entirely different. This is what comes to mind when meeting the Nobel Peace prize winner, Dr. Muhammad Yunus. So, can we realistically achieve zero percent poverty in the world? Professor Yunus has answered this question in his new book with confidence, not only because he has faith in his idea but because he is actually seeing this happen in his country, Bangladesh. Over 140 spokesmen, authors and economic experts attended the function where Dr. Muhammad Yunus discussed the foundations of his book at the Islamic Development Bank Group headquarters in Jeddah on Nov. 18. Dr. Yunus is the recipient of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize awarded to him and his Grameen Bank, for their efforts to create economic and social development. He explained his theory that people should not go to banks, rather that banks should go to the people. “These millions of small people with their millions of small pursuits can add up to create the biggest development wonder,” said Dr.Yunus. In his new book he has describe the further evolution of Grameen System and introduced the concept of social business, based on his Grameen System experience. “Social business introduces a totally revolutionary dimension to the free market economy. It is a non-loss , non-dividend business aimed at achieving social objectives in the areas of education , health, environment or any other area where society faces problems,” said Dr. Yunus. In 1976 Yunus had started to give loans without guarantees to poor women in Bangladesh, and today the scope of his activities extends to 100 countries. “About 7.5 million beneficiaries, 97 percent out of whom are poor women have successfully implemented small projects to improve their life,” said Dr.Yunus. In his book he gives the details of the first such social business project, the Grameen Danone Company, the idea of which was born over a lunch with Franck Riboud, chairman of the Danone group. Riboud agreed to the proposition, and they later determined all the modalities of the scheme, which involves distributing a fortified sweet yogurt called ‘Shokti Doi' for poor malnourished children of Bangladesh at a price they can afford. “Poverty is not created by poor people, but by institutions and policies that are artificially imposed on them. If you want to change the status of these people, you must change the institution and policies,” Dr. Yunus said. __
