Year 2000 winner: Grameen Bank
The Winner of the King Hussein Humanitarian Leadership Prize 2000:
Professor Muhammed Yunus founder and creator of the Grameen Bank – Bangladesh, received the first King Hussein Humanitarian Leadership Prize on November 14th 2000, the anniversary of the late King Hussein’s birthday, at a ceremony held in Amman under the Patronage of His Majesty King Abdullah II.
“The winner of our 2000 award is a true visionary and has been described as having ‘created the first institution with soul from the ground up’. The Grameen Bank is the key model for the global micro finance movement, which is breaking the vicious cycle of poverty, discrimination and instability in communities throughout the word. Through personal example, and enormous faith in his fellow women and men, our prizewinner has become, over the past 25 years, one of the most powerful voices for the world’s poor and marginalized.” Her Majesty Queen Noor paying tribute to Mr. Yunus at the presentation ceremony.
Grameen Trust’s Assistant General Manager Lamiya Morshed received the award on behalf of Mr. Yunus, who addressed the ceremony via pre-recorded videotape. In his videotaped address, Mr. Yunus expressed gratitude for the honor bestowed upon him and explained the philosophy behind his work: “Poverty is created by the institutions that we established around us and the policies we pursue. Banks believe that the poor are not credit worthy. We believe that banks are not people worthy.”
Grameen Bank (GB), established in 1976, has reversed conventional banking practice by removing the need for collateral and created a banking system based on mutual trust, accountability, participation and creativity. GB provides credit to the poorest of the poor in rural Bangladesh, without any collateral. It has more than 2.4 million borrowers, 95 percent of whom are women. With 1,170 branches, GB provides services in 40,000 villages, covering more than half of the total villages in Bangladesh.
