Muhammad Yunus is "the father of one of the most important breakthroughs of the last decades in the sphere of development and in the fight against poverty". With these words, Louis Michel, EU Commissioner for development and humanitarian aids, defines micro-credit, an invention that has recently earned the Peace Nobel prize to the founder of the Grameen Bank, a rural bank that gives access to loans to millions of peasants in Bangladesh and other nations. After the congratulations of the president of the executive committee, José Manuel Barroso, Michel stated today that in giving the Nobel prize to Yunus "the international community acknowledges the close relationship existing between development and peace. At the same time, access to micro-credit gives prospects to the poorest people and above all to businesswomen, who thus become the veritable driving forces of economic and social development". According to the Belgian commissioner, micro-credit "has already enabled dozens of millions of people in the developing countries to start some independent business and leave behind the vicious circle of poverty and exploitation".
