October 13, 2006

Grameen Bank wins 2006 peace prize. It's a simple but powerful idea: microcredit. "Dilwara Begum became a Grameen borrower 11 years ago. She began with just one milk cow. Then, about four years ago, another loan helped build a poultry barn, a productive enterprise that takes the whole family to manage. The weekly yield of about 7,000 eggs is picked up every other day and taken to the capital, Dhaka, about three hours away."

Over thirty years, the Bank has lent over US$4 billion to mostly rural, mostly women borrowers. Grameen Bank was started in 1974, in the middle of a famine. Nowadays, they don't have famines any more and Grameen is one of the reasons why.

posted by StoryBored 18 years ago
  • Grameen not Grammen. argh.
  • That is extremely cool.
  • Definitely an interesting approach.
  • Well deserved.
  • We have a tradition of micro loans here in Chicago Miss a payment, you feed the fishes
  • We used the an adaptation of the Grameen model in a project I worked on down in the southwest. It's not without its critics, but it was pretty successful even in the very different environment of a mountainous part of China. The empowerment aspect can be far more valuable than the direct income generation in my view.
  • I was just listening to a story about this on NPR this am. so awesome on so many levels, I am really glad this has been recognized with the NPP.
  • The Nobel Peace Prize is BULLSHIT. You can never get tickets to see the qualifiers, and no-one bothers to televise the final. There's no fucking way Grammen Bank could have knocked out Bono in twelve rounds. If you think they deserve to win without throwing a single fucking punch then you're the stupidist asshole who ever lived, bar none - NONE.
  • OK, maybe a little harsh. You're probably just one of a thousand or so idiots. Top quartile retards, maybe.
  • OK, OK. How about this: if you disagree with me, you're perfectly entitled to your view, but you should have been beaten to death when you were small, because now you're just breathing up air that smart people need.
  • wow, you bugger someone's corpse a few times and they get SOOOO testy!
  • The quorpse still has testes?
  • The weekly yield of about 7,000 eggs is picked up every other day and taken to the capital, Dhaka, about three hours away." From what I've seen of Indian highways, this seems like a lot of work just to move some eggs 8 blocks.
  • Dhaka is in Bangladesh ;-)
  • This is the way it should work. Oh, and Quid, don't let the preview button hit you in the ass on the way out.
  • This is the way it should work. Oh, and Quid, don't let the preview button hit you in the ass on the way out.
  • All Bangladesh had before was flooding and famines. This is a great improvement for the people.
  • Interesting that he was awarded the Nobel Peace prize, rather than the Economics prize.
  • All Bangladesh had before was flooding and famines And platform shoes
  • Interesting that he was awarded the Nobel Peace prize, rather than the Economics prize. Yes. The Nobel Prize committee does out-of-the-box thinking! it's great. And not a moment too soon because one of the nominees apparently for the prize was, Mr Mustache, John Bolton, US ambassador to the UN. Yah, right.
  • Congratulations to the IPCC, anyway.
  • Here's the Sean Hannity spin: "So now Gore's got the same prize as Arafat got. Fitting." And quid, don't let the preview button hit you on the ass on the way out.
  • unnnhh, Hawthorne? I don't think if Quid hasn't bothered to read this thread since October of 2006 that he'll be back anytime soon. So let's par-tay like we've been given the Nobel prize, baby!
  • Personally, I wasn't thrilled about Gore getting (half) the prize -- I think there are a lot more people out there who have worked longer and harder at the problem of climate change than Gore has. Plus, I have this lingering feeling that being a spokesperson isn't really doing anything as such (a 'Princess Diana Syndrome', as it were). Lending celebrity, while noble and well-intentioned -- and indeed produces good results -- isn't exactly labouring in the trenches of the issue. For the same reason, I found the talk of making Bono the head of the World Bank entirely ridiculous. But still -- Gore has done good work. Am I inclined to see him as the equal of a Mandela, a Gorbachev, or a Carter? No. The choice of Gore is a lot better than the Nobel missteps of Kissinger and Arafat, though (the missteps becoming known largely after the fact). I thought the WSJ raised some good points, but then it listed Tony Blair for his work on the Irish situation, and then saw the piece as the bit of right-wing crap it was. Sure, Blair's work on Northern Ireland may put him on the nomination list, but his work in Iraq would surely take him off again. In summation, the committee did allright by naming Gore, but only just allright. The Nobel works best when it lends its power to someone who needs it for the fight they're involved in -- like Tutu or Aung San Suu Kyi. And in that, they didn't choose as well as they could have. IMHO. YMMV.
  • DY-NO-MITE!!!
  • For any award given, especially one with a global candidate pool, there is bound to be a healthy list of people who probably deserve it as much as the awardee.