Yunus won the Peace Prize for developing the microcredit system, which makes tiny loans to poor people and thus helps lift them out of poverty.
Norway's foreign ministry wants to launch the microcredit concept in several African countries, as part of its foreign aid efforts. The ministry has enlisted the aid of Yunus himself in doing so.
Yunus will act as a special adviser to the ministry's microcredit project and the bank he founded, Grameen, will get Norwegian funding to spread its expertise.
"This can be cheaper than using Norwegian expertise, and they have much more practical experience with this than we have," said cabinet minister Erik Solheim, who's in charge of Norway's foreign aid programs.
The ministry will set up a fund and seek to enlist contributions from private business to finance small loans to would-be entrepreneurs in Africa. The loans carry no collateral requirements.
There remains no truce in site, meanwhile, between Yunus and telecoms firm Telenor over ownership of GrameenPhone, a mobile venture in Yunus' homeland Bangladesh. A meeting between Yunus and Telenor executives in Oslo on Friday failed to result in any agreement.
