Grameen founder takes aim at conventional banks
Following the global financial crisis, conventional banks have lost a trillion dollars, yet they are still not in favour of lending to the poor.
Following the global financial crisis, conventional banks have lost a trillion dollars, yet they are still not in favour of lending to the poor.
Microcredit, tiny loans to the world’s poorest, is booming and now benefits more than half a billion people but Africa and Latin America lag behind Asia and unscrupulous lenders are cashing in. The Microcredit Summit Campaign surveyed more than 3 000 microcredit bodies around the world and found they reported reaching 133-million people by the end of 2006.
A council of peacemaking world leaders and Nobel laureates launched by former South African president Nelson Mandela is taking up Darfur as its first mission, with a trip to Sudan planned later this month, the organisation said on Monday. Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who chairs the group known as The Elders, will lead a delegation.
Fuelled by last year’s Nobel Prize for a man nicknamed ”banker to the poor”, microlending to small businesses in the world’s poorest countries is booming as individuals discover they can be their own mini World Bank. And you don’t have to be Bill Gates to get in on the act.