Microcredit economist wins Noble Peace Prize

BANGLADESHI economist Muhammad Yunus and his Grameen Bank won the Nobel Peace Prize yesterday for their pioneering use of tiny, seemingly insignificant loans — microcredit — to lift millions out of poverty.

Through Mr Yunus’s efforts and those of the bank he founded, poor people around the world, especially women, have been able to buy cows, a few chickens or the mobile phone they desperately needed to get ahead.

“Lasting peace cannot be achieved unless large population groups find ways in which to break out of poverty,” the Nobel Committee said in its citation.