"I can't believe that it's truly happened," Yunus told Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK) shortly after the Peace Prize was announced. "Thank you so very much."
Yunus, who started the so-called "microcredit" system of making tiny loans to poor people in rural Bangladesh, said he already was looking forward to making the trip to Oslo on December 10 to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. He said he'd invest the SEK 10 million cash award that comes with the Peace Prize back into his financing offers for the poor.
The Grameen Bank has noted itself that it "never imagined that one day we would be reaching hundreds of thousands, let alone six million, borrowers." It doesn't demand collateral in making small loans to "the poorest of the poor" who want to try starting up small business ventures.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee said that "loans to poor people without any financial security had appeared to be an impossible idea." Yet from its "modest beginnings" in Bagladesh, "Yunus has, first and foremost through Grameen Bank, developed microcredit into an ever more important instrument in the struggle against poverty."
Yunus beat out 191 other candidates for this year's Peace Prize. Candidates are never identified, but it was widely thought that human rights activists like Lida Yusupova in Chechnya and Rebiya Kadeer of northwest China, or peace brokers like Maarti Ahtisaari, were on the committee's list.
The Nobel Peace Prize is awarded, under the terms of Alfred Nobel's will, by a committee appointed by the Norwegian Parliament. Its five members represent the spectrum of Norway's political parties.
Members of the current Norwegian Nobel Committee include:
