The Club of Budapest, honored the founder of the Grameen Bank with its Business Innovation Prize. The Club's credo is based on the conviction that the critical factor in coping with today's problems is the thinking of today's people. The annual award thus honors outstanding persons who further the evolution of planetary consciousness with actions and ideas, pointing the way to the future and addressing global challenges. "If we train our mind differently, we can create another kind of world", said Muhammad Yunus. "Entering the 21st century with the consciousness that marked the 20th, would be like entering the modern age with the consciousness of the middle ages", said Erwin Laszlo, co-founder of the Club of Rome and founder of the Club of Budapest.
Praising the achievements of Grameen, former German Minister President, Dr. Lothar Spaeth underscored the need to establish a firm social structure in rural areas, to ensure income generating activities, which create self-employment.
The Grameen Bank concept, Spaeth told 1000 prominent guests, has proven to be a 'missing link' between capital markets and the basic needs of underdeveloped economies. "Its simplicity, scope, integration into village life, and moderate interest and loan repayment regulations, all serve to strongly motivate and support the private initiative of its women borrowers. The Grameen Bank concept has proven to be highly effective in support of a sustainable social structure. It is now showing a way to a social market economy all over the globe".
Honored together with Muhammad Yunus, was the man who led the world to a decisive change in consciousness, Mikhail Gorbachev, who received the Planetary Consciousness World Leadership Prize. Perestroyka, affirmed Gorbachev in his emotional acceptance speech, was too great a challenge for one generation, and then made a passionate plea that we now take the courage to create a long overdue social and ecological framework for a global market economy. The growing interdependence of countries worldwide calls for global leadership, a challenge elaborated in his newly published book New Thinking Political Policy during the Age of globalization.
Reported by Nancy Wimmer from Germany.
The current Grameen Home Page
URL: http://www.citechco.net/grameen/index.html
An extended search utility on Grameen Bank and various enterprises belonging
to Grameen family, is available here. You can download the current issues
of Grameen Dialogue from this site.
Microcredit Summit Information
URL: http://www.microcreditsummit.org
Grameen Microcredit Info
URL: http://www.accessone.com/~carlp
Includes speech of Dr. Yunus, and other useful links to microcredit
information
Grameen Bank Support Group/ Australia
URL: http://www.rdc.com.au/grameen
Grameen Bank Support Group / Japan
URL: http://www. yomogi.or.jp/~bisho
Bisho Volunteer Organization has a website in Japan.