Posted By: Eugene Taylor

by Justin Cole

HALIFAX, Nova Scotia (AFP) - Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus and Queen Sofia of Spain opened a major development summit aimed at lifting tens of millions of the world's poorest people out of dire poverty through tiny business loans.
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Campaigners at the second Global Microcredit Summit, which runs here November 12-15, announced their lofty goal of advancing the loans, called microcredit, to 175 million of the world's most impoverished people by the end of 2015.

"Let's make this an historical summit where we got the ball rolling to create a poverty-free world," Yunus said at an opening ceremony held in Halifax's Metro Center sports stadium.

"Those who doubted us, we hope they will (now) be on board," the Nobel Peace Prize winner told delegates, urging them to banish crushing impoverishment to "poverty museums."

Interest in microcredit, which is largely granted to people vying to survive on less than one dollar a day to start or expand small businesses, has mounted since Yunus won the Nobel Peace Prize in mid-October.

Some 2,000 delegates, including government ministers and microcredit specialists, as well as representatives from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, have travelled to this east coast Canadian city from some 100 countries around the world to attend the summit.

Campaigners say microloans, which average 100 dollars and require no collateral, can help poor people expand a basic food-selling or handicraft-marketing business and enable them to lift themselves out of poverty.

"It is with great pleasure I take part in this global microcredit summit," Queen Sofia said at the opening ceremony.

The Spanish queen was sporting a cloth wrap over her left shoulder that she had purchased for 120 cents from a group of Bangladeshi women who have benefitted from microcredit loans.

"Microfinances are at an excellent stage of improvement," she said, saying that the small loans boost self-esteem and had been hugely effective.

Peter MacKay, Canada's Foreign Minister, announced to delegates that his government had approved over 40 million dollars for different microfinance projects that would be targeted at projects in Asia, Africa and Latin America.

"Around the world, the power of microfinance is transforming lives," McKay said.

"Canada's new government is a leader in microfinancing in Afghanistan, which is part of our efforts to foster self reliance," the foreign minister added.

"Poverty in my view is the greatest challenge facing us at the moment," Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukut Aziz told delegates.

MacKay, Aziz and other officials praised Yunus for the decades-long work he has done in promoting and developing the use of microcredit to help impoverished people improve their circumstances.

Yunus founded the Grameen Bank in his native Bangladesh to oversee tiny business loan lending and the bank has extended microloans to 6.6 million people since 1976.

The mood at the opening ceremony, where delegates where invited to sign a Declaration of Support, was upbeat with music videos, emotional testimonials from people who had received microcredit and demonstrations of African dance.

However, the enormity of the global challenge facing the microcredit community and Yunus is daunting.

Experts estimate there are between 1.0 and 1.2 billion people around the world, mainly in Asia, who live on less than one dollar a day.

Summit-backers conceded earlier this month that they had failed to meet a 1997 goal set in Washington in 1997 to advance microcredit to 100 million poverty-stricken people by the end of 2005, although they say they will likely reach that target by the end of this year.

Ministers and delegates pointed out that microcredit alone is not a magic "panacea" for eradicating world poverty, but said it can be a very powerful anti-poverty tool when linked to better education and improved healthcare.

Microcredit, which is often dispersed through rural credit unions, is not limited to the developing world.

Microcredit programs exist in the United States and the local Chronicle Herald newspaper ran a front page story Sunday highlighting how a local Halifax woman had set up a small online business selling gifts and toys with the help of microcredit.

Delegates dispersed from the opening ceremony to attend a series of special workshops, including a panel with Yunus, at which they will swap ideas and exchange their experiences.

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