From the Acton Commentary: Micro-Finance: A Way Out of Poverty
The Norwegian Nobel Committee actually gave two awards for economics this year. The Committee gave the Peace Prize to an economist for achievements in practical economics. No, the Committee didn’t exactly say that, but in honoring Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank, the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize honors the power of the free market to reduce poverty. The Nobel Prize Committee agrees that access to credit leads to economic opportunity, which leads to higher incomes, which leads to a solid foundation for a lasting peace.
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“The poor you will always have with you,” a great wise man once told us long ago. And indeed we do. But the micro-credit movement has helped many of the poor become less poor, and to lift themselves, their families, and their neighbors out of abject poverty.
In the words of the Nobel Committee, “Every single individual on earth has both the potential and the right to live a decent life. Across cultures and civilizations, Yunus and Grameen Bank have shown that even the poorest of the poor can work to bring about their own development.”
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