U.S. lawmakers on Friday approved a measure to grant the Congressional Gold Medal to Nobel peace prize winner Mohammad Yunus, a pioneer of micro-credit. The legislation, which honors Yunus for “his contribution to the fight against global poverty,” will now go to President Barack Obama for his signature. The House of Representatives approved a measure to grant Yunus the honor on Thursday evening, after the Senate approved the medal in October 2009. The Congressional Gold Medal and the Medal of Freedom are the highest civilian honors that can be awarded in the United States. Yunus earned the moniker “banker to the poor” by promoting the use of micro-credit-small loans that can help the poor build small businesses. He won the 2006 Nobel peace prize for his work distributing the loans through his Grameen Bank, which he founded in 1976 to help increase the access of the poor to credit.
