Egypt, China central banks sign pacts to boost yuan use, payment systems    EGX ends week in green on July 10    Egyptian pound strengthens against US dollar on July 10    EBRD, Banque Misr sign Egypt's 1st $100m sustainability-linked loan deal    Egypt's FM discusses Gaza efforts with Arab counterparts    Egypt's EDA, Haleon discuss local market support    Environment ministry signs agreement to strengthen marine protection, promote ecotourism    Egypt, WHO discuss expanding health cooperation, development initiatives    Service restoration underway after Cairo telecom fire, minister tells PM    Chinese Premier Li Qiang arrives in Egypt for high-level talks    Gaza under siege, fire: Resistance intensifies amid deepening humanitarian collapse    Korea Culture Week in Egypt to blend K-Pop with traditional arts    Egypt, Pakistan boost healthcare ties – Cabinet    UK, Egypt strengthen cooperation on green transition, eco-tourism, and environmental investments    Escalation in Gaza as ceasefire talks remain fragile amid mounting humanitarian crisis    CIB finances Giza Pyramids Sound and Light Show redevelopment with EGP 963m loan    Egypt's PM, Uruguay's president discuss Gaza, trade at BRICS summit    Greco-Roman tombs with hieroglyphic inscriptions discovered in Aswan    Egypt reveals heritage e-training portal    Three ancient rock-cut tombs discovered in Aswan    Egypt condemns deadly terrorist attack in Niger        Egypt's EHA, Schneider Electric sign MoU on sustainable infrastructure    Sisi launches new support initiative for families of war, terrorism victims    Egypt expands e-ticketing to 110 heritage sites, adds self-service kiosks at Saqqara    Egypt's Irrigation Minister urges scientific cooperation to tackle water scarcity    Palm Hills Squash Open debuts with 48 international stars, $250,000 prize pool    Egypt's Democratic Generation Party Evaluates 84 Candidates Ahead of Parliamentary Vote    On Sport to broadcast Pan Arab Golf Championship for Juniors and Ladies in Egypt    Golf Festival in Cairo to mark Arab Golf Federation's 50th anniversary    Germany among EU's priciest labour markets – official data    Cabinet approves establishment of national medical tourism council to boost healthcare sector    Egypt's PM follows up on Julius Nyerere dam project in Tanzania    Egypt's FM inspects Julius Nyerere Dam project in Tanzania    Paris Olympic gold '24 medals hit record value    A minute of silence for Egyptian sports    Russia says it's in sync with US, China, Pakistan on Taliban    It's a bit frustrating to draw at home: Real Madrid keeper after Villarreal game    Shoukry reviews with Guterres Egypt's efforts to achieve SDGs, promote human rights    Sudan says countries must cooperate on vaccines    Johnson & Johnson: Second shot boosts antibodies and protection against COVID-19    Egypt to tax bloggers, YouTubers    Egypt's FM asserts importance of stability in Libya, holding elections as scheduled    We mustn't lose touch: Muller after Bayern win in Bundesliga    Egypt records 36 new deaths from Covid-19, highest since mid June    Egypt sells $3 bln US-dollar dominated eurobonds    Gamal Hanafy's ceramic exhibition at Gezira Arts Centre is a must go    Italian Institute Director Davide Scalmani presents activities of the Cairo Institute for ITALIANA.IT platform    







Thank you for reporting!
This image will be automatically disabled when it gets reported by several people.



Consigning poverty to the museum
Published in Al-Ahram Weekly on 07 - 12 - 2006

Ismail Serageldin* pays tribute to the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize winner who will be receiving his award
On Sunday, 10 December 2006, a Bangladeshi economist and the institution he founded 30 years ago will receive the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway. Muhammad Yunus, known to many as the "banker to the poor," started his journey toward creating the Grameen Bank in 1976 with a loan from his pocket to 42 desperately poor people in Bangladesh. The total loan amounted to US $27 -- less than US $1 per person.
One of the 42 borrowers was a woman who made bamboo stools and a profit of just two pennies a day. Professor Yunus was shocked to learn that the moneylender, who provided the loan, required the woman to sell the finished stools back to him at a price that barely covered the cost of the bamboo, thus resulting in a life of extreme poverty. With a loan from Prof. Yunus, the woman could now sell her product to the highest bidder and her profit skyrocketed from two pennies a day to US $1.25 a day.
Muhammad Yunus was trained as an economist, not a banker, and over the last 30 years he has broken countless rules of banking and other disciplines. He provided loans to the poor, not the rich; to women, not men; in small amounts, not large; and without collateral or any paperwork.
The world would be a much harsher place if these rules had never been broken, if no one anywhere had ever bothered to question the notion that the poor could not use or repay a small loan, had not questioned the myth that the poor are not credit worthy, or had not questioned the myth that says you cannot give a loan without collateral. The Nobel Peace Prize Committee is celebrating the work and breakthroughs of Muhammad Yunus, Grameen Bank, and all the other revolutionaries who have pioneered this remarkable intervention.
This revolution has spread to Egypt. Since the 1990s, much of the microcredit provided in Egypt came via NGOs which served thousands of borrowers and had millions of US dollars disbursed in loans. Today, there are many interesting micro-finance activities supported by institutions such as the National Bank for Development, the Banque du Caire, the Social Fund for Development and small Grameen Bank replication programmes throughout Egypt.
One of Egypt's excellent micro-enterprise lending programmes is in Alexandria and is run by the Alexandria Business Association (ABA). ABA Small and Micro Enterprise program works through 34 branches in Alexandria, Kafr El-Sheikh, Beheira, Marsa Matrouh and Monoufeyia. For its outreach programme, ABA capitalises on the tight social networks in densely populated areas and uses word of mouth to publicise its micro-finance services.
Stemming from ABA's organisational commitment to extend credit and non- financial services to the poorest of the poor, especially poor women, the "Blossoms of Micro Enterprises" programme was launched in late 1999. One of the programme's most inspiring success stories is that of a female client from Alexandria, who started with a EGP 100 loan in 2001. In less than five years, she established her own small clothing factory and could afford not only to fully repay her loans, send her children to school and raise her family's standard of living, but also to employ three other workers in her project. She now sells her products to many clothing shops in Egypt.
Many other micro-finance programmes in Egypt are being supported by the Sawiris Foundation, the analysis of which has shown such programmes to be enormously powerful means of combating poverty and creating jobs. Some of the poorest women in Egypt are also being reached by Grameen- like programmes, such as the "Tadamon" (Solidarity) micro-finance programme affiliated to the Women's Health Improvement Association in Egypt.
Last month, Professor Yunus joined more than 2,000 delegates from 112 countries at the Global Microcredit Summit 2006 in Halifax, Canada. At that Summit, delegates launched Phase II of the Campaign with two new goals for 2015:
- reaching 175 million of the world's poorest families with microcredit, affecting 875 million family members;
- ensuring 100 million families rise above the US $1 a day threshold, lifting half a billion people out of extreme poverty.
This is a challenge to the micro-finance movement in Egypt and around the world. We have the potential to expand dramatically, but can we also make a profound contribution to the Millennium Development Goal of cutting US $1 a day poverty in half by 2015?
As Muhammad Yunus says, "Poverty does not belong in civilised human society. Its proper place is in a museum." Let us work to use the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize as an impetus to put poverty in the museums, where it belongs.
* The writer is director-general of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina.


Clic here to read the story from its source.