Nobel Peace Prize 2006

The Nobel Committee awarded the Peace Prize to Prof. Mohammed Yunus who is the founder of the Grameen Bank and the concept of Micro-lending and Micro-finance. The Nobel Committee never fails to surprise me because the odds for this individual were so low that they never featured in any of the discussions or commntaries on the most likly recipients.

My view is that this prize is richly deserved. Not only does the Grameen Bank represent a novel approach to helping the desperately poor, but more especially because the winner represents an institution with a replicable idea. Thus this is as much a prize for an idea whose originator proceeded to implement with significant success. Granted that the idea of micro-lending has its limits, it still represents sufficently original thinking about getting people to engage in profitable enterprise. No one can begrudge Prof. Yunus of this prize.