Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus urged world leaders today to get back to fighting poverty as outlined by the United Nations' millennium goals and to stop spending money on wars like the one in Iraq.
The Bangladeshi economist, who won the 2006 peace prize with his Grameen Bank for their work to lift millions out of poverty by granting tiny loans to the poor in Bangladesh, said the link between a peaceful world and the fight against poverty was clear.
"Poverty is a threat to peace," he said in the prepared text of his acceptance speech in Oslo. "Over one billion people live on less than a dollar a day. This is no formula for peace," said Yunus, a Bangladeshi economist whose autobiography is titled "Banker to the Poor".
Dr Yunus and Grameen Bank's representative Mosammat Taslima Begum received gold medals and diplomas at a ceremony at Oslo's City Hall today to applause from about 1,000 guests.
The prize created by the Swedish philanthropist Alfred Nobel comes with a cheque for 10 million Swedish crowns to be shared by the prize winners. The laureates were announced in October.
Dr Yunus said the new millennium began with a dream to cut poverty in half by 2015 as agreed by world leaders in the UN millennium goals in 2000. "But then came September 11 and the Iraq war, and suddenly the world became derailed from the pursuit of this dream, with the attention of world leaders shifting from the war on poverty to the war on terrorism," Yunus said.
"Till now over $530 billion has been spent on the war in Iraq by the USA alone," he said. "I believe terrorism cannot be won over by military action," he said, but added that terrorism had to be condemned "in the strongest language" and the world must stand solidly against it. "We must address the root causes of terrorism to end it for all time to come," he said.
"I believe that putting resources into improving the lives of the poor people is a better strategy than spending it on guns." To build peace it was necessary to provide opportunities for people to live decent lives, he said and added that he had worked to give opportunities to the poor for the past 30 years.
It all started in 1974 with $27 loan by Yunus to a group of villagers who had fallen victim to extortionate money-lenders amid a famine that ravaged Bangladesh. "If I could make so many people happy with such a tiny amount of money, why not do more of it?" "That is what I have been trying to do ever since," he said.