#49: a deserving recognition

This year the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Prof. Muhammad Yunus – the father and architect of informal microfinancing in Bangladesh through the Grameen Banks*. It's a richly deserved recognition for a number of reasons.

This could have been the Nobel Prize in Economics. It is development economics in practice – beyond the ivory towers of academia, beyond the hallowed portals of ivy league universities, and beyond the ceteris paribus of textbook models. This actually works. And it affects the lives of people who really matter, and not just those who spend a lifetime in the corridors of central banks in pin-striped suits. It has been a catalyst to the marginalised, the homeless, the disadvantaged, and the penniless to start a "life" they all deserve.

But as the Nobel Peace Prize it's a symbolic reminder that poverty, turmoil, and unrest form a vicious cycle. It takes ingenious initiatives to break out of this trap and remain out of it. "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime." The Grameen Bank has done just that. Congratulations.

* Grameen is "rural" in Bangla.