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It may not sound glamorous and certainly its chief proponent is not a household name (even after he received one of the grandest of honors, the Noble Peace Prize), but micro-credit and Muhammad Yunus deserve to be noticed and applauded. In contrast to Bono and the much-hyped RED campaign, Yunus and his Grameen Bank are going about doing great works and affecting real change – without a lot of hoopla.

Yunus, a native Bangladeshi, has expertly navigated the choppy waters of the Bangladesh political system and the intense rivalries that exist between leading power groups in the country, to become as the London Financial Times describes him, “a saintly figure of incalculable prestige and popularity in Bangladesh.” (Financial Times, December 9/10, 2006)

While some people were surprised that the Nobel Committee chose to award a peace prize to a banker, those at the front lines of poverty alleviation in the third world were elated. Yunus’s mirco-credit program makes an unequivocal link between poverty alleviation and social stability. Bangladesh, which a few years ago was branded by Henry Kissinger as a “basketcase,” and nearing social and economic breakdown, is now firmly on the path of economic and social transition. With the world’s seventh largest population, and as the world’s third largest Muslim country, Bangladesh could well have become a source of major instability in the region and in the world. But Yunus has proved that peace and stability can be achieved by enabling citizens to have a stake in their system; by creating development from the ground up using tools and methods that are culturally appropriate, rather than using aid approaches imposed from outside.

The micro-credit program (and others like it) have given an astonishing 90 percent of the families in Bangladesh access to some form of finance. The result: Bangladesh’s poverty rate has declined nine percent over the past five years. Most loans are tiny amounts by western standards. The average recipient, most of whom are women, receives the equivalent of just $130. But, there is a 99% payback rate (far higher than for most loans in the U.S.). Most of the money goes toward establishing small, grass-roots businesses – chicken farms, dairy farms, grocery shops, and furniture manufacturers. But Grameen bank is branching out into new areas, such as lending money for enterprising villagers to purchase mobile phones. These “telephone ladies” (most of them are women) then sell the airtime to other village members. The profits from these enterprises have been impressive.

Yunus and his Grameen Bank provide an excellent model for economic and social development in other poor regions of the world. Micro-credit has been successfully introduced in India, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam and a host of other – mainly Asian – countries. At the grass roots level, micro-credit has awakened the entrepreneurial spirit and empowered many at the fringes of modernity to participate in the economic life of their countries. What’s more, the micro-credit model can be readily adapted to different cultural contexts throughout the developing world.

Yunus is known as a somewhat shy and retiring man. He does not lead the jet-set life of most celebrities, nor does he actively seek out publicity. But he has given hope to millions of his countrymen, and he has provided a model for what could become the most successful poverty alleviation solution for our age.