Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus Visits Venezuela

Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus Visits Venezuela
Banker stresses need to focus on microlending
Alfredo Ascanio (askain)
Published 2007-05-12 15:27 (KST)

A day before the international forum "Words for Venezuela," sponsored by Banesco, Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus offered several ideas at a press conference set up by the financial organization.

Discussing the theme of the forum, Yunus emphasized how the approach is about the possibility of establishing businesses whose sole aim is not making money but rather addressing social problems. He explained in depth how the Grameen Bank ("Bank of the villages") of Bangladesh, which he founded, has granted microcredits to 80 percent of Bangladeshi families and hopes to serve every eligible family by 2010.

This institution, of which 7 million women of the poorer classes are shareholders, helped to integrate a class into the nation's economic life that had never counted on having anything to do with banks, such as applying for loans, explained Yunus. He recommended involving the poor as shareholders in initiatives that can accrue economic benefits to them, through an efficient management.

The banker said that the question now is not whether to choose globalization, but how to choose between its good and bad variants.

"The market chooses the bad globalization naturally, because it is easier," he said. Yunus is in favor of establishing controls so that the weakest are not controlled by the most powerful in the global system.

In order to overcome poverty Yunus recommends focusing on the granting of microcredits, access to education and the availability of information technologies. He explained the difference between the traditional bank, focused on verifying the credit file, and the new banking concept that he defends, saying that it is more important to concentrate on the future of the people.

Yunus also reflected that situations like hunger, the lack of housing or difficulties to raise to children are the same "as much in Bangladesh as in Venezuela."

©2007 OhmyNews
Other articles by reporter Alfredo Ascanio