Human Rights Advocacy
Nobel Peace laureate calls for making access to credit a human right
At the Global Microcredit Summit, the stage was set for a revolution in the fight against poverty as a bevy of new announcements and commitments were made. This year's Nobel Peace Laureate, Muhammad Yunus, called for creating a more peaceful world through ending poverty, noting that access to credit is a major problem across the world in developed as well as developing countries. Ten of the largest microfinance institutions, including BRAC, FINCA International, Opportunity International and the Association of Asian Confederation of Credit Unions pledged to work with the Microcredit Summit Campaign to find and implement credible methodologies to measure progress of clients towards raising the US$1 a day threshold and to report those findings to the Campaign annually.
Prof. Yunus noted that despite being one of the richest donors, the World Bank still only spends around one percent of its budget on microcredit. He called on the World Bank to pay earnest attention to the world's poorest people through microcredit.
"On issues from health to wealth and everything in between, the world continually fails the poorest people," said Sam Daley-Harris, director of the Microcredit Summit Campaign. "As we set bold goals and introduce new innovations in microcredit we must be absolutely sure that we are reaching the poorest people and we could not be happier that ten of the world's premier microfinance institutions have pledged to do just that."
The Grameen Foundation launched Mifos - an open source information management platform. This new initiative was designed to address the significant technology challenges facing microfinance practitioners worldwide by revolutionizing the way they access and use technology to run their operations.
"The initiatives launched today will take microcredit to the next level," said Mr. Daley-Harris. "What started with a few dollars in loans in a Bangladeshi village more than three decades ago has transformed into the foundation upon which we will build the Museums of Poverty."
Prime Minister Driss Jettou of Morocco sent a message to Summit delegates expressing his government's support for their important work: "The Microcredit Summit Campaign has played a determining role in the worldwide success of microfi-nance." He was unable to attend the Summit due to previous commitments.
Source: CIVICUS.
