Posted By: John Steele

By Emily BowersMon Nov 13, 3:53 PM ET

HALIFAX, Nova Scotia (Reuters) - Making the case for giving
small loans to some of the world's poorest people has become a
lot easier since Bangladesh's Muhammad Yunus and his Grameen
Bank won the Nobel Peace Prize this year for their work
providing microcredit, Yunus said on Monday.
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"We can now talk to policy-makers, the decision-makers
around the world much more effectively than we could do it
before," Yunus told a news conference during the Global
Microcredit Summit, being held this year in this East Coast
Canadian city.

"Ever since we started this work with Grameen Bank in
Bangladesh there are lots of criticisms," he added, citing
religious and political opposition. "So with the Nobel Peace
Prize ... many of (the critics) will die down, because it's not
something they can ignore."

Yunus was awarded the prize last month along with Grameen
Bank, which he founded. The bank has made more than $5.7
billion in tiny loans to poor Bangladeshis, the majority of
them women. Its success has spawned scores of other microcredit
initiatives globally.

"(There's) the kind of feeling that a poor woman is no
longer a person to be ignored," Yunus said.

He said his focus now is on lobbying governments to create
a legal framework for microcredit initiatives.

"For microcredit we need a separate, independent regulatory
department because this is not to be left to the central bank
to regulate because the rules of the game are different."

The commercial banking sector, constrained by conservative
lending policies, is not typically a viable partner, he said,
noting that those involved in microcredit tend to do it as
philanthropic outreach and not as commercial ventures.

"The countries who try to do it through the conventional
banks get a limited outreach."

Regulated policy would help meet new goals set by summit
organizers to reach 175 million of the world's poorest families
-- identified as people who live on $1 a day or less -- through
microcredit by 2015.

The initial goal of reaching 100 million people by 2005 was
set at the first microcredit summit, in Washington in 1997.
Organizers said they expect to reach that target by the end of
this year.

More than 2,000 delegates are attending the four-day
Halifax summit, discussing a wide range of issues on
microfinance.

Yunus's presence lent a star quality to the meeting, which
runs until Wednesday, with diplomats and politicians lavishing
praise on the banker to the poor.

"He inspires people everywhere he goes," Canadian Foreign
Minister Peter MacKay said at Sunday's opening ceremonies.

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