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Clinton Global Initiative 2006 Transcripts - click numbers on this page for full transcript . These numbers also index: CEOS: who are discovering a human mission in life beyond just making the last quarter's numbers regardless of future conseqeunces: 97 & 83 Virgin's Branson; Googles' Page; Microsoft's Gates; Cisco's Chambers; Starbuck's Donald; Siemens' Kleinfeld; Yahoo's Semel; Sony's Stringer;104 Grupo Carso's Slim;95 Infosys' Nilekani; 104 News International's Murdoch; Reed Elsevier's Hommen;Standard Charters' Davies; Larfarge's Collomb; 103 TNT's Bakker; Best Buy's Anderson; Swiss Re's Aigrain;104 Wall-Mart's Scott ; 101 Timberland Comany's Swartz; 78 Ethan Allan's Kathwari 91 Financing Clean Energy : Executive Director from Fundacion Solar, Ivan Azurdia Bravo; Chairman of Development Alternatives, Dr. Ashok Khosla; Founder, Green Belt Movement, Professor Wangari Maathai. And please welcome back our moderator, John Podesta. Energy & Climate Change | Public Health | Poverty Alleviation | Mitigating Religious & Ethnic Conflict | Other 2005 Partnership Focus Areas:Climate Change | Governance | Poverty Alleviation | Religion | Other 105 Delegates & Speakers - includes: | Grassroots World Changers; Yunus (Nobel Laureate 2006 Peace - Micro Entrepreneur Economics):Maathai (Nobel Laureate 2004 Peace- Biomass Economics): Abed, BRAC,World's Largest Citizen Organisation- deepest franchises of health and education for & by the very poorest; Drayton Origin of Social Entrepreneur Maps (2000 coordinates funded), and Changemakers.net peoples competitions: eg peace, health, buildings; Ashok Khosla, Ivan Bravo | | Sustainability Venture Capitalists & Systemic Entreprenurial Revolutionaries: Richard Branson (3 billion $ for Climate Crisis), Vinod Khosla | | Goodwill ambassadors & Journalists for Humanity | | CEOs (Crisis Initiative Sponsor): Larry Page (google & Climate), Rupert Murdoch(News International & Climate), Nandan Nilekani Infosys, | | National or Race Leaders (Past & Present): Bill Clinton, Laura Bush, Al Gore, Hillary Clinton |
97 special commitments: Branson, Yunus, Gore, Khosla et al 83 Chairman and Founder, Virgin Group Limited Sir Richard Branson. Partner, Khosla Venture, Vinod Khosla. CEO and Co-founder, Rocky Mountain Institute, Amory Lovins. Presidential Chief of Staff, Government of Brazil, Dilma Vanna Rousseff. And please welcome back the Honorable Carol Browner. 104 What Can Business Do? - William Jefferson Clinton;And panelists: Chairman of the Board, Grupo Carso, Mr. Carlos Slim; Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, News Corporation, Rupert Murdoch; General Colin L. Powell, President and Chief Executive Officer, Wal-Mart, H. Lee Scott, Jr. & moderator Tom Brokaw ... Rupert Murdoch (publishing) joins industry sectors committed to zero footprint futures: Industry sectors on zero footprint goal: " Our London office is going to absolutely carbon neutral. And it’s a company employing thousands of people. We think it does a lot for the reputation of the company. It improves its image. It makes it more valuable. That’s good for the shareholders too. But it’s good for the society. This involves ttle incentives that all add up and they are all a mess. Whether it’s changing from a taxi company to one that only uses non carbon fuels. We subsidize every employee $2,000 who will buy a hybrid car. We are looking at everything we do, our suppliers, every thing they supply to us, boxes or whatever. What fuels are they using, what are they doing. Then where we will fall short at the end, we are committed to put in ¯ you know a wood farm or forest in certain parts of the world to make up the difference. We are doing that and we are now examining whether we can do it across the world for our whole company in every country in which we operate. .. That people want to feel proud of who they are working for or what company they are involved with and feel proud of it. And they want to feel they are being good citizens and they can talk to other people about it. And I think that we have learned a lot today. I think we have seen how far things have progressed in the last few years. You know it’s the market system somebody said working very well because people see this is good business" Global Health Working Session: Healthy Workers and Productive Businesses: Ensuring Home and Workplace Wellness 103- Peter Bakker, Carol Jacobs, Jonathan Oppenheimer and Michael White. moderaor: Michelle Norris. 102 Susan Arnold, President Jakaya Kikwete, and Richard Stearns. moderator: Michele Norris. Mitigating Religious and Ethnic Conflict: Preventing and Resolving Deadly Conflict 101 Don Cheadle, actor and activist, John Prendergast, senior advisor of the international crisis group, and Jeffrey Swartz, President and CEO of The Timberland Company. 100 Hanan Ashwari, The Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialog and Democracy, MIFTAH; Eival Gilady, Portland Trust, Tel Aviv; Ghassan Salame, CNRS CERI. r moderator: George Mitchell, DLA Piper. Poverty Alleviation Working Session: Financing Ideas, Initiatives and Innovations 98 : Majora Cater, executive director, Sustainable South Bronx. Andrew Natsios, professor diplomacy, Georgetown University and Dr. Ngozi Okanojo-Iweala, former finance minister of Nigeria. Our moderator is James Wolfensohn, chairman, Wolfensohn and Co. LLC. 95 Cities of the Future Jamie Lerner, former mayor of Curitiba, Brazil; Ken Livingston, mayor of London; William McDonough, Nandan Nilekani, chief executive officer Infosys Technologies Limited; our moderator, Judy Woodruff 84 WorldHeatlh: Dr. Peter Hotez, the president of Sabine Vaccine Institute and the chair of the Global Network for neglected tropical disease control at George Washington University. Dr. Sam Zaramba the director general of Health Services in Uganda .Jimmy Carter 39th President of USA and founder of the Carter Center who has been focusing the attention of the world on problem of neglected diseases. eg. The president’s efforts on Guinea worm have eliminated this disease in 99.7-percent of the world. Moderator George Stephanopoulos 85 Worldhealth: Moderator George Stephanopoulos ;Lance Armstrong, Valentine Fuster (president of the World Health Foundation, and a professor of cardiology at Mount Sinai) ; Srinath Reddy (one of the first to warn of an impending epidemic of cardiovascular disease and diabetes in India, and has been one of the world’s most proactive leaders in stemming the spread of chronic diseases. He is president of the Public Health Foundation of India,) ;, and Nizal Sarraf Zadegan (She is director of the Cardiovascular Research Center in Isfahan, Iran. ) 79: Mitigating conflicts: Alastair Crooke of the Conflicts Forum; Mark Drewell of Barloworld International; Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga, Former President of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka. our moderator, President Mary Robinson. 78 Mitigating Conflicts: John Battle, member of Parliament, United Kingdom; Farooq Kathwari, Chairman, President and CEO of the Ethan Allan Interiors, Inc., Dominque Strauss-Kahn, member of Parliament and former Minister, France. our moderator, Mary Robinson, of Realizing Rights, the Ethical Globalization Initiative.
92: Summing up with video link to Nelson Mandela; and by Bill Clinton and Initiative rapporteurs. Nelson Mandela " [Via video feed]: I am delighted to speak with you today on such a wonderful and important occasion as the closing session of the Clinton Global Initiative. The mission of this gathering and the problems you have all planned to fight compel me to join you here today in support of your efforts. I first want to applaud my friend Bill Clinton, and his vision and determination to convene this audience and mobilize a new force to address the greatest challenges the world faces at the start of the 21st century. I commend you for accepting President Clinton’s call to action. The Clinton Global Initiative is a tremendously unique and critical gathering of human beings committed to the move from rhetoric to action -- action on an unprecedented scale. This Initiative is a global movement where every word spoken, every partnership discovered, and every promise made can have a direct impact on the lives of millions of people across our planet for generations to come. We must ask ourselves a question: What can I do as a global citizen? Your commitments can become a powerful tool in shaping a better world. And the results they achieve hold much promise and hope for us all. I thank you most sincerely for your commitment. Let us combine our efforts to ensure a peaceful future for our children.:
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HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON: Miland Revere board chair of Vital Voices Global Partnership and her partners are Maria Eitel, president of the Nike Foundation; Ray Ferguson, CEO of the American Standard Chartered Bank; Sandra Taylor, vice president Corporate Social Responsibility for Starbucks Coffee Company and Exxon Mobil. They have committed to holding a conference in January of 2007, making a commitment of $1 million to convene a Pan African Women’s Leadership Summit, the purpose of which is to connect more than 200 African women ... Dr. Zeda Rosenberg, CEO of the International Partnership for Microbicides, known as IPM. IPM and its partner Harvard University and Partners in Health will commit $3 million over the next three years to support access to microbicides for the prevention of HIV transmission, and to help develop a broader framework to bring innovative global public health goods to low resource settings. ...Ajay Banga, chairman and CEO of Citigroup’s Global Consumer Group International. Citigroup will be expanding its programs to support sustainable microfinance institutions by $100 million over five years. ...Dr. Allan Rosenfield. Those of us in public health work, or who have supported the soldiers on the frontlines of public health, know this name very well. Dr. Rosenfield is the dean of the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University. The Mailman School will be making a five-year $75 million commitment to help improve women’s health, decrease maternal death and disability, provide prevention, care and treatment for women infected with HIV/AIDS and decrease the incidence of violence against women in conflict areas. PANEL:Reema Nanavaty is the director of the Economic and Rural Development of Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) in India. ; Ann Veneman assumed the leadership of UNICEF on May 1, 2005, ; Ajay Banga is chairman and chief executive officer of Citigroup’s Global Consumer Group International Businesses. Dr Gayle, president and CEO of CARE. She is the first woman and first person of color to lead this premier humanitarian organization in its 60-year history. 81 Mitigating conflicts: Salman Ahmad, Musician and UN AIDS Goodwill Ambassador. Susan Marks of Search for Common Ground. Jeff Skoll, The Skoll Foundation and Participant Productions. our moderator, Zain Verjee. 80 Mitigating conflicts: His Highness Shaikh Salman bin Hamad bin Isa Al-Khalif, Crown Prince and Commander-in-Chief of the Bahrain Defense Force; Richard Cizik of the National Association of Evangelicals; Vartan Gregorian of the Carnegie Corporation or New York. our moderator, Zain Verjee 88 Diversity in a globalised world: Queen of the Royal Hashmeite Kingdom of Jordan, Queen Rania Al-Abdullah, President Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, Archbishop Emeritus, Desmond Tutu, moderator, Editor of Newsweek International Fareed Zakaria. 87 Poverty Alleviation Nick Moon of Kickstart International [applause], Jacqueline Novogratz of the Acumen Fund [applause], and the honorable Ernesto Zedillo of the Yale Center for Globalization, the former President of Mexico, moderator Charlayne Hunter-Gault, 86 CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: KRISTIN PETERSON: Inveneo; PREMAL SHAH: Kiva.org Judith McHale, the CEO of the Discovery Communications and the Discovery Channel:Discovery Global Education Partnership; partnership’s a key word, which I’ll get to in a moment, which now operates in ten countries. We have close to 200 educational sites. We reached 500,000 kids; and our goal is to reach a million kids by 2010. To date we’ve trained over 7000 teachers to – in the way that they can use video in the classroom. 90 Clean Energy Investment Boom. Managing director Goldman Sachs, Abby Joseph Cohen. Partner in Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield and Byers, John Doerr; Executive Vice President, Ecoenergy Mexico, John Paul Moscarella and our moderator, president and CEO Center for American Progress, John Podesta. 82 Climate: renewable electric power: Vice President Johnson and Johnson Corporate, Dr. Brenda S. Davis, CEO Solar Century Jeremy Leggett, Chairman and Managing Director, Suzlan Energy, Tulsi R. Tanti, and our moderator Principal, the Albright Group, the Honorable Carol Browner.
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Skoll 2007 award winners discussions 1 - please mail info@worldcitizen.tv with news of other discussion areas Details of Skoll's top 10 menu of 2007 from your bookmark- would love to hear from people who already love one of these- what more can they tell us about why this is a current best replicator of its sort? Also would you say that what Skoll is doing in colaborating with other SE networks like ashoka is sifting out franchises ready to fly worldwide? The 2007 Skoll Awardees 1 http://www.volvamos.org/controller.php?action=idioma&lenguaje=english&url_page=/ Escuela Nueva Foundation – est 1987, has strengthened and promoted the Escuela Nueva (New School) model in Colombia and abroad, demonstrating that with the right educational approach, any child can achieve high academic standards and permanently escape poverty. The Escuela Nueva model now reaches more than 5 million children in 14 Latin American countries, Uganda and the Philippines and the World Bank has recognized Escuela Nueva as one of the most innovative educational programs in the developing world. Social Entrepreneur: Vicky Colbert Headquarters: Bogota, Colombia Grant Objective: To support the Escuela Nueva Foundation’s Smart Scaling Campaign to reach an additional 1.5 million children by 2010 through current program expansion in Latin America and Uganda and by launching new programs in India, Peru, Costa Rica and Bolivia. 2 http://www.freethechildren.com/ Free The Children – Free The Children , N America, recognizes the potential of young people to create positive social change. More than 500,000 students have joined the organization’s Youth in Action groups in 1,000 schools across the U.S. and Canada. They have shipped $11 million in essential medical supplies and have provided health care projects benefiting more than 505,000 people. Social Entrepreneurs: Craig and Marc Kielburger Headquarters: Toronto Grant Objective: To expand in the U.S. and establish 800 new Youth in Action groups that raise an additional $1.5 million each year. 3 http://www.friends-international.org/ Friends-International – Since 1994, Friends-International has been running projects worldwide for and with street children, attempting to reintegrate these children into society and providing positive alternatives to those who unwittingly or out of economic necessity enable this phenomenon, such as taxis, Internet cafes, restaurants, hotels and tourists. Each year 85,000 children benefit from programs operated by Friends-International and partner organizations in Cambodia, Laos, Indonesia, Myanmar, Thailand, Honduras, France, Switzerland, the United States and Germany. Social Entrepreneur: Sebastien Marot Headquarters: Phnom Penh, Cambodia Grant Objective: To build a financially sustainable global network of partners capable of helping 500,000 street children each year. 4 http://www.footprintnetwork.org/ Global Footprint Network – To combat humanity’s consumption of ecological resources beyond sustainable limits, Global Footprint Network developed the Ecological Footprint. The Ecological Footprint is used by Wales, Switzerland and Japan, and by hundreds of other cities, counties, businesses, intergovernmental bodies and educational institutions. Social Entrepreneurs: Mathis Wackernagel and Susan Burns Headquarters: Oakland, California Grant Objective: To add 15 national and/or international government agencies using the Ecological Footprint to the partner network by 2010. 5 http://www.gramvikas.org/ Gram Vikas – Gram Vikas (Village Development) has developed a holistic approach to rural development in India that involves entire communities, with water and sanitation as the starting point. The program has been implemented in 289 villages, reaching 22,347 households and has successfully proven that the rural poor can and will pay for better sanitation and water facilities. Social Entrepreneur: Joe Madiath Headquarters: Orissa, Ganjam, India Grant Objective: To bring water and sanitation to 100,000 families by 2010. 6 http://www.kashf.org/ Kashf Foundation – Kashf is a microfinance institution that offers women below the poverty line in Pakistan a way out through access to financial services. est 1996 now assists 150,000 clients:delivers collateral-free microloans, savings and life insurance products through branches that become sustainable within 10 months. Thirty-five percent of its clients move out of poverty within three years. Social Entrepreneur: Roshaneh Zafar Headquarters: Lahore, Pakistan Grant Objective: To expand operations to 600,000 clients by 2010 in Pakistan’s Punjab and Sindh provinces. 7 http://www.manchesterbidwell.org Manchester Bidwell Corporation est 1984; raising graduation and college enrollment rates; reducingemployment for thousands of young people each year in impoverished urban environments across the U.S. ; operates art and recording studios, computer classrooms and industrial kitchens, among other facilities, demonstrating that an inspiring space and state-of-the-art equipment lead to more motivated and engaged students. Social Entrepreneur: William Strickland Headquarters: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Grant Objective: Support replication programs in six cities that will serve 1,800 additional youths by 2009. 8 http://www.msc.org Marine Stewardship Council - To combat declining levels of wild fish stock, ;500 MSC-labeled products from 22 certified fisheries are sold in 26 countries. Major companies such as Whole Foods in the U.S. and Marks and Spencer and Sainsbury in the U.K. have stocked MSC seafood, and in 2006 Wal-Mart announced that it would begin to source all its fish from MSC-certified suppliers. Social Entrepreneur: Rupert Howes Headquarters: London Grant Objective: To increase market penetration in Europe, strengthen its U.S. presence, expand into the Asia/Pacific arena and certify at least eight more fisheries by 2010. 9 http://www.verite.org/ Verité – Engaging workers in a solutions-driven, participatory model, Verité partners with hundreds of multinational brands, sector leaders, factories, nongovernmental organizations, institutional investors and governments to improve social and environmental performance of global supply chains. Verité currently operates in more than 60 countries in electronics, apparel, footwear, food and beverage, and agriculture industries, among others, with a growing network of staff and partners. By bringing practical auditing, training, capability building and research solutions to stakeholders of the global workplace, Verité improves the lives of global factory workers, Social Entrepreneur: Dan Viederman Headquarters: Amherst, Massachusetts Grant Objective: To strengthen partnerships in dozens of countries and train 1,500 practitioners to replicate its model by 2010, with the potential to reach hundreds of thousands more workers worldwide. 10 http://www.youthbuild.org/ YouthBuild USA – To create a positive future for low-income young people who left high school without a diploma, YouthBuild re-enrolls them in an alternativeschool where they complete high school and build affordable homes for their neighbors, while transforming their own lives and becoming responsible citizens and good parents with well-paying jobs. Annually engagse 8,000 youths in 42 states and produces affordable housing for 1,000 low-income or homeless families. Social Entrepreneur: Dorothy Stoneman Headquarters: Somerville, Massachusetts Grant Objective: To build a critical mass of role models and have 500 YouthBuild students communicate their experience to audiences of millions, expand the program and fund a re-entry program for adjudicated youths in three states.
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Mr Prahalad Comes to Washington - The BOP (Bottom of the Pyramid) is Now the Centre of the World, Lasting News, 19 March 2007 Data never seen before on what 4 billion people most want as community customers is at http://www.wri.org/business/pubs_description.cfm?pid=4142 We dream that one day all BOP business models and Yunus Social Business Entreprise StockMarket 2.0 entries will appear in the same bookmark for anyone to openly browse, continuallyhi-trust ceritfied by these two worldwide economists as still operating the case that they first voted for. Until then we can only ask you to help us start the listings.
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As journalists who have written up more biographies 1 2 on entrepreneurs for humanity than most, we are disgusted by how little economics has changed its high priests in the last 22 years in spite of the very clear map we made in 1984 of the ever increasing system chnages economics would need to undergo - one of a series of work that built up to my father's vaedictory reviews after a lifetime of work at The Economist. So we absolutely celebrate the 2006 Nobel Prize for peace but likethis Indian arcticle wonder when economics prizes will be freed from the voting of academic peer group cliques who are usually funded by vested interests in big and macro, and not micro and sustainability Development as a Nobel cause JAYATI GHOSH | Economist Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank of Bangladesh win the Nobel Peace Prize for 2006. |
THERE are many reasons to celebrate the award of the Nobel Peace Prize for 2006 jointly to Muhammad Yunus, the recognised creator of the "microcredit" model of finance for the poor that has swept across the developing world, and the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh that he founded three decades ago. These reasons go well beyond appreciation of the valuable human qualities of the man himself, such as his creativity, persistence, charisma and passionate advocacy in promoting this model widely and extending it in various ways. One important reason is that awards such as this rescue the Nobel Peace Prize both from the controversial dogfights that have accompanied some of the political choices of the past, and from being mired in a very restrictive notion of the concept of peace. This award, along with the earlier award to the African environmentalist Wangari Maathai, shows the Nobel Committee's recognition that peace is not really possible without more equitable development. The citation says as much, claiming that this prize is being given to Yunus and the Grameen Bank "for their efforts to create economic and social development from below. Lasting peace cannot be achieved unless large population groups find ways in which to break out of poverty." But while this is clearly a much-deserved prize, it also exposes other weaknesses about the Nobel Prizes in general. It is in some ways a safe, even predictable, choice. Rumours about this award have been in wide circulation for some time, given the now almost universal espousal of microcredit by the World Bank and international development agencies in general, as well as by many developing country governments. The United Nations declared 2005 to be "the international year of microcredit", and there has been enthusiastic promotion of the concept in international circles by former American President Bill Clinton and others. What is worth noting is that Yunus, who is an economist, received the Nobel Prize for Peace, rather than Economics. Yet his contribution has really been in the field of economics, since his model stood conventional economic theory on its head and effectively created a new paradigm, which has since spawned an international industry of theoretical models to explain its success. This tells us something about how relatively limited in vision the awards of the Economics Nobel Prize have been. They have focussed much more on narrow academic peer recognition than on addressing real world development issues or processes that actually transform economies. Promoting Microcredit What exactly was this innovation called microcredit? To understand its significance, it is important to begin with understanding how formal financial institutions operate. Since giving credit is always associated with some risk of default - that is, the borrower not returning the loan amount or paying interest - bankers of all types usually require some form of surety (collateral) against which they can lend. Formal banking institutions therefore require the borrower to have assets such as land or a house, or a secure job, or a certified credit history, or some such assurance against which they will proffer funds. This obviously eliminates the poor, who are by definition without significant assets and usually also lack secure streams of income through regular employment. So the poor get automatically excluded from formal financial institutions, and are forced to go to private moneylenders who charge very high rates of interest. These traditional moneylenders are able to function in such circumstances because they can somehow ensure that the loan and interest are repaid through extra-economic means, or can extract other forms of payment such a labour services. It was therefore accepted that the poor were not "bankable" for formal financial institutions, or able to access other financial services such as insurance. Economic theory had also devised many complicated models to explain the necessary persistence of traditional money-lending and high interest rates among the poor. The significance of the Grameen Bank and other microcredit experiments was that they countered this axiomatic belief by showing that even formal financial institutions could provide loans exclusively to the poor and still be assured of repayment. This is because they are based on the principle of "group lending" whereby loans are made to a group (of between 5 and 20 people) and therefore peer pressure acts as an effective mode of ensuring repayment. Muhammad Yunus may not be the pioneer of microcredit - there were cases of similar experiments in the early 1970s in Colombia and Brazil, for example. But he was the first to make this a viable model capable of being copied and scaled up. He also became a tireless propagator of the cause of microcredit worldwide. It all began in 1974, during a famine in Bangladesh, when Yunus was teaching economics at the Chittagong University after receiving a doctorate in the United States. In his efforts to do something to help the famine-ravaged people in the district, he was visiting nearby villages when he was persuaded to make his first loan in the village of Jobra. He offered around 7,000 Bangladeshi taka from his own funds to a group of 42 bamboo craftspeople in desperate need. They had no collateral to offer, and no contract was signed. Nevertheless, the loan was repaid in full, after the borrowers used the money to buy bamboo, sell their crafts and repay both Yunus and the traditional moneylenders to whom they were indebted. Yunus drew from this the lesson that the poor can indeed be viable and creditworthy borrowers. But his efforts to persuade banks to lend to them independently were fruitless, as the banks all continued to insist on his personal surety for any loans taken by those without collateral. In any case, traditional banks were simply not interested in making tiny loans at high transaction costs to those with no credit history. The Grameen Bank was founded in 1976 by Muhammad Yunus as a result of such experience. It was dedicated to serving the poorest of the poor, based on Yunus' vision that even such very poor people were viable credit risks and could make productive use of small loans to enhance their earning capacity. Women as target group The Grameen bank model that emerged had some important features, apart from its concentration on the poor as clients. It involved lending in groups (originally of five members) who were jointly responsible for the loan. It required repayment in small periodic instalments, over a relatively short period. It lent not only to farmers but also to rural labourers, petty traders, and most importantly to women. While at first male borrowers outnumbered their female counterparts, this was consciously altered so that by the mid-1980s, women accounted for more than 96 per cent of the loans disbursed. This aspect of lending to women has emerged as one of the more transformatory features of the Grameen model. Women turned out to be much more reliable borrowers, whose loans were used for the well-being of the family. But this also became an important instrument of social change in the conservative patriarchal context of Bangladeshi society. Not only did the access to microfinance improve women's bargaining power within their households, but the fact of meeting together and being part of groups led to other ways of thinking in a collective mode that proved to be quite empowering. These features have been emulated not only by the Bangladesh Rural Action Committee (BRAC) and Proshikha, the two other large microcredit non-governmental organisations in Bangladesh, but across the world, as the focus on microcredit has been an important part of the agenda of multilateral development banks and even of governments. And the focus on women borrowers has proved to be one of the more successful results of the model wherever it has been transplanted. The spread of this essentially simple idea has been quite remarkable in the past two decades. According to the "State of the Microcredit Summit Campaign Report", 2005, at the end of 2004 there were 3,200 microcredit institutions that reported reaching more than 92 million clients across the world. In India too, governments at the Central and State levels have been actively promoting microcredit, particularly to women, through the institution of Self-Help Groups , which engage in both savings and loan activities. In States such as Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, such organisations have been present for some time now, through the efforts of NGOs such as Mahila Samakhya and Co-operative Development Foundation. A further innovation has been to form them into federations and link them with formal lending institutions. The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development has a scheme whereby it finances more than 500 nationalised banks for lending on to SHGs that have managed their funds well. The amounts involved are relatively small and the interest rates are quite high (usually around 12 per cent). But the scheme involves very large numbers - around 1.4 millions SHGs comprising nearly 20 million women, making this Indian scheme therefore the largest bank-microcredit linkage in the world. No panacea Despite this spread, and some clear areas of success, it is a mistake to view microcredit as the universal development panacea that it seems to have become for the international development industry. It can at best be a part of a wider process that also includes working towards reducing asset inequalities, better and more egalitarian access to health and education services, and more productive employment opportunities. The amounts of money distributed through microcredit are small and the periods for repayment so short that they cannot really lead to effective asset-building. Some argue that microcredit at best acts as a consumption stabiliser, reducing the adverse effects of shocks such as natural calamities or seasonal fluctuations, and provides means for taking advantage of small business opportunities. In the absence of other measures or more dynamic growth processes, this can amount to no more than a redistribution of incomes among the relatively poor, rather than an overall increase in incomes of the poor. It can also be associated with microcredit dependency, involving continued reliance on loans for consumption rather than productive use. Similarly, the group lending that delivers high repayment rates can also become an instrument of stratification, especially when there are linkages with banks providing some additional institutional finance to the groups. There have been cases of women from the most destitute or socially deprived groups being excluded from membership of groups containing better-off members, because of fears that their inability to repay will damage the prospects of other members. In some States, peer pressure has forced women borrowers to take expensive loans from moneylenders to repay the loans from the SHG. Criticisms do not detract from the importance of the microcredit model, but they do emphasise that this in itself cannot be seen as the magic bullet to end rural poverty. To their credit, both Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank themselves appear to be aware of this rather obvious truth, since their interventions over the past decades have been characterised by continuous innovation and experimentation. In addition to other forms of microfinance such as insurance, Grameen has experimented with housing loans, loans for fisheries and other small enterprises, venture capital, solar energy projects, a commercial telecom project with a Norwegian partner to deliver cheap rural phones, and now even health care services. It is this approach of constantly listening to the actual needs of the poor, of being flexible in terms of continuously looking for new solutions and enlarging possibilities from below, which is the most engaging aspect of Muhammad Yunus' contribution. Even more than microcredit alone, it may turn out to be his most positive influence
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OUT OF THE BOX
NAVIGATOR please mail info@changeworld.net to nominate competitions being hosted to change world for all peoples' sakes, and sustainability list of known competitions includes: ted.com prizes 2007 War photographer, James Nachtwey, one of the world's most prominent scientists, E.O. Wilson, and President William J. Clinton : 2006 (Truth Being Wishes : Brilliant Ms Noujaim Sinclair ) 2005 ( Bono Burtynsky Fischell) Dec06 FastComapny Awards List Annual laureates of CA's Tech Museum Nobel, annual: peace ... deep reporting networks 2006 include grameen.tv
Macarthur Foundation - annual individual fellows awards to Americans with exceptionally focused creative talents
changemakers.net, about quarterly by rotating priority compasses of social entrepreneurs ... ongoing reporting at worldentrepreneur.net Barefoot College Wins 2006 Alcan Prize for Sustainability The winner of the 2006 Alcan Prize for Sustainability is Barefoot College, led by Bunker Roy. The $1 million award annually recognizes one nongovernmental organization, not-for-profit or civil society organization working to build a sustainable society. The prize is managed independently by the International Business Leaders Forum. Since 1972, Barefoot College has improved the lives of some of India’s poorest people by training them to become health workers, teachers and engineers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2007 Social Capitalist Awards Named Eleven current Skoll Foundation partners and awardees have been named winners of the 2007 Fast Company Monitor Group Social Capitalist Award, which honors social entrepreneurs who combine creativity and ingenuity with business solutions to address social problems. The organizations and their social entrepreneurs, where applicable, are Calvert Social Investment Foundation; Ceres, Inc. (Mindy Lubber); Citizen Schools (Eric Schwarz); Civic Ventures (Marc Freedman); College Summit (J.B. Schramm); Ecologic Finance (William Foote); KickStart (Martin Fisher and Nick Moon); Room to Read (John Wood); Teach for America (Wendy Kopp); TransFair USA (Paul Rice); and WITNESS (Gillian Caldwell).
Riders for Health, led by Andrea and Barry Coleman, was honored at the national finals of the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year awards. Competing against top entrepreneurs in the United Kingdom, the organization was named “Social Entrepreneur of the Year” at a gala ceremony in London. Riders has developed vehicle maintenance and training systems to ensure that African health workers can reach remote communities on a regular basis.
Ciudad Saludable, founded by Albina Ruiz, is one of 12 winners of the 2006 Dubai International Award for Best Practices to Improve the Living Environment.
The awardees were all deemed to have made outstanding contributions toward improving the quality of life in cities and communities. They were chosen from 690 submissions. Each will receive a trophy, a commemorative certificate and a check for $30,000 at the awards ceremony in Dubai in early 2007. Ciudad Saludable generates employment and facilitates cleaner cities in Peru by creating local enterprises to collect and process garbage. CAMFED Director Wins Creativity Award The Women’s World Summit Foundation in Switzerland has awarded Angeline Mugwendere of the Campaign for Female Education (CAMFED) the prize for Women’s Creativity in Rural Life. CAMFED founder Ann Cotton tells us that Angeline was one of the first young women in Africa that her organization helped stay in school. Angeline is now the director of CAMFED Zimbabwe. She will receive $3,000 to invest in her work with girls and young women. Jefferson Award Goes to Roots of Peace Heidi Kühn, founder of Roots of Peace, has won a San Francisco Bay Area Jefferson Award from the American Institute for Public Services, a national foundation that honors individuals who perform community service. In addition to being profiled in the San Francisco Chronicle, she was featured on the CBS5-TV and KCBS-AM radio. Roots of Peace converts minefields to vineyards, agricultural fields and safe migration corridors for wildlife. archives of win-win-winners news pictures (with thanks to valuetrue gallery)  launch doc in browser
 author of The Economist's 1976-1984 triliogy on Entrepreneurial Revoltion in 1943 before he started university or career long journalism of leadership
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The Macarthur Foundation annual awards to individual fellows reads like a treasure trove of Americans who go on to change the world. A particular 2006 fellows favourite of change world affiliate worldcitizen.tv is Victoria Hale and her no loss pharmaceutical company  |  | Victoria Hale
Founder and CEO
Institute for OneWorld Health
San Francisco, California
Age: 45 | | Pharmaceutical Entrepreneur navigating regulatory processes to develop affordable drugs for neglected diseases and to deliver them around the world to those most in need. | | More details |
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24 oct 2006 http://www.politicsonline.com/content/main/specialreports/2006/top10_2006/winners2006.asp Politics Online and World E-gov forum are proud to announce the winner of the top 10 changing the world of politics and the internet is factcheck.org The following is an alphabetical listing of the Top 10 Who Are Changing the World of Internet and Politics for 2006:
 
Randy Paynter
Annenberg Foundation
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David Madden & Jeremy Heimans
< 
Korea Online Citizen Participation Portal
< 
Markus Beckedahl 
Open Space Online, Gabriela Ender
Doug Bailey, Gerald Rafshoon
This year’s winners of the Top 10 Who Are Changing the World of Internet and Politics were announced at the World E-Gov Forum on October 18-20, in Issy-les-Moulineaux, (Paris, France).
Selection Process
The selection process began in July, when PoliticsOnline asked its subscribers and visitors from around the world, to nominate people, organizations and companies that are changing the world of Internet and politics. From those, 20 were selected to compete in the final round with the Top Ten and the final winner chosen by over 18,000 voters worldwide. Criteria Nominees were selected based upon the following:
•Highly effective leaders who are making outstanding e-political and e-governmental achievements
•Forward-thinking organizations that have led the way in this revolution
•Innovative ideas or strategies that have forever changed the political process
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