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Muhammad Yunus
Muhammad Yunus, winner of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize, will discuss his vision for eliminating poverty worldwide on Feb. 5 at the Kenen-Flagler Business School on the UNC campus (view the press release here).
Yunus founded the Grameen Bank of Bangladesh in 1983 and shared the Nobel Prize with the bank for creating and implementing the concept of microcredit: giving small loans to the poor to help them start or grow businesses and climb out of poverty. In his latest book, “Creating a World Without Poverty: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism” (PublicAffairs, 2007), Yunus asserts that banishing poverty is the key to world peace.
Those of us who work in global health know that the issues of poverty and health are inextricably linked in a way that greatly hinders the progress of developing countries. Without the health of its citizens, a nation cannot prosper. Without a certain level of wealth, a government (or industry) can neither establish nor sustain an adequate health care delivery system.
Yunus’s Grameen Foundation is exploring whether the application of microcredit to health care might be the answer to this vicious circle of poverty and poor health, and Yunus plans to meet with representatives from the UNC School of Medicine, Gillings School of Global Public Health and Kenan-Flagler Business School to discuss possibilities for collaboration and implementation.
It is only through these kinds of efforts–entrepreneurs, economists, medical scientists and public health experts working together–that we will truly address the world’s greatest health challenges.