US highest civilian award to Muhammad Yunus of Bangladesh

Dhaka, 20 April 2013: Muhammad Yunus, Nobel Peace Laureate, creator of microcredit and founder of the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh was awarded on April 17 the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian award in the United States. He was given the award of his fight against global poverty and promotion of social and economic opportunities for Bangladesh.

In presenting the Gold Medal of the Congress, John Boehner, Speaker of the House of Representatives, said: "Prof. Yunus has managed to do what is perhaps the greatest thing in the world: free people and allow them to look for a better life through micro-credit."

Yunus is the first Bangladeshi to receive such a recognition. However, several times in the past he has been criticized for his management of the bank and for the principle that is at the basis of microcredit. This system is based on loans to the poor without collateral, to help them create small businesses. The problem is that institutions such as the Grameen Bank, founded by Yunus in 1983, leave a certain amount of cash to staff engaged on the territory, who then pledge to recover the money themselves. Most of the time, however, these people become nothing short of moneylenders. In the past, in India it was discovered that the microcredit systems was behind a spate of apparently inexplicable suicides. Today, the Grameen Bank has over a thousand branches with 12,500 employees. 2,100,000, customers in 37,000 villages of which 94% are women.
Source: AsiaNews