Banker to the Poor (26 page)

At each step, future information and communication technology should be creating a global environment to unleash the creativity, ingenuity, and productivity in every human being. Any person anywhere should be able to enroll in any academic institution on the basis of his or her interest and ability, irrespective of his or her social upbringing, geographic location, or financial capacity.

The entire concept of an academic institution would also be vastly different from what it is today. In such an environment, it would not be surprising to learn that the most creative student in a very prestigious university comes from a poor family in a remote village in China, or Ethiopia, or Bangladesh—and that she or he has never yet visited a town.

Another "access" I would like to see is access to the market: I would like to see all barriers and protections around world markets disappear. Protectionism is built up in each nation in the name of the poor, but its real beneficiaries are the rich and clever people who know how to manipulate the system. By contrast, the poor have a better chance in a bigger open market than in a smaller protected market. Everyone would benefit from the free flow of commodities, finances, and people.

It does not make sense to build high walls around the borders of our countries. Passports and visas are a twentieth-century phenomenon that did not really exist before that. Let us leave them behind with the century that invented them. Let us take pride in our human identity above all other identities. Let us wave our national flags, celebrate our regional, national, racial, local, religious, political, and cultural identities, but not by offending others, not by claiming supremacy. Instead, we should glorify in the unity of humankind, strengthened and enhanced through the friendly competition of cultures, religions, and other diversities.

Needless to say, technology as well as economic necessity is bringing us closer to this borderless, distanceless world. Let us welcome it with applause.

Europe is now leading the way in creating a free and open market among nations. Other regional associations and groupings of countries can follow Europe's initiative. Later we can move from regional to interregional, and finally to the free global movement of people, finance, commodities, and services from any one location in the world to any other. With the concept of national government waiting to be drastically redefined in the context of new economic and technological realities, it would be a natural step to go beyond political borders to seek friends and partners without state authority intervening in such matters.

My close friend Sam Daley-Harris, the executive director of RESULTS, was getting tired of lobbying the U.S. Congress for tiny sums of money. He could see that despite his great work in alleviating poverty, the problem was simply too big. Something dramatic was needed. Sam had witnessed the amazing success of Jim Grant, the executive director of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), and his Children's Summit of 1990, when the world's leaders came to New York City and signed on to ambitious goals. So Sam started toying with the idea of a gala event, a summit for micro-credit. He sought a reasonable but ambitious target for the summit. With John Hatch of the Foundation for International Community Assistance (FINCA), he articulated his new vision: to reach the 200 million poorest families—the entire population of poor people in the world—through micro-credit within ten years.

I did not think that Sam's goal was feasible. To be taken seriously, we needed a more reasonable goal. I suggested we aim to reach the 100 million poorest families in the coming ten years (at that time, 1996–2005). Agreeing with my revised figure as our official goal, Sam proposed that we organize a world summit.

Drafting our declaration proved to be very contentious. Everyone wanted to rewrite the declaration, and I was disappointed to see how the summit preparations opened up conflicts among various organizations—all of which were trying to achieve the same thing: poverty alleviation. Sam grew increasingly frustrated. I tried to cheer him up by saying that we had to confront all our academic, institutional, and philosophical differences head-on. It was easy for me to say this from the safety of Dhaka, but Sam was the focal point for everyone's anger.

Summit preparations were hectic, but the outpouring of support thrilled us. Held February 2–4, 1997, the Microcredit Summit certainly succeeded in mobilizing worldwide action. About 3,000 people from 137 countries gathered in Washington, D.C. The three cochairs of the summit, First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, Queen Sofia of Spain, and Tsutomu Hata, the former prime minister of Japan, made passionate and forceful speeches. Hillary Clinton hailed the summit as "one of the most important gatherings that we could have anywhere in our world." She went on to explain:

It [micro-credit] is not just about giving individuals economic opportunity. It is about community. It is about responsibility. It is about seeing how we are all interconnected and interdependent in today's world. It is recognizing that in our country, the fate of welfare recipients in Denver or Washington is inextricably bound up with all of ours. It is understanding how lifting people out of poverty in India or Bangladesh rebounds to the benefit of the entire community and creates fertile ground for democracy to live and grow, because people have hope in the future.

 

Sheikh Hasina, the prime minister of Bangladesh, chaired the summit's operating plenary session. On the podium she was joined by Alpha Oumar Konare, the president of Mali; Y. K. Museveni, the president of Uganda; P. M. Mocumbi, the prime minister of Mozambique; Alberto Fujimori, the president of Peru; Queen Sofia of Spain; Tsutomu Hata; Siti Hasmah, the First Lady of Malaysia; and myself. It was an electrifying start to an historic event.

The Summit organized the participants into separate specialized councils: the Council of Practitioners, the Council of Donor Agencies, the Council of Corporations, the Council of Religious Institutions, the Council of UN Agencies, the Council of International Financial Institutions, the Council of Advocates, the Council of NGOs, and the Council of Parliamentarians.

It was indeed a macroevent for micro-credit. During those three days, the whole world came together to discuss solutions to poverty. And the energy generated by listening to other leaders and other advocates, and by meeting so many colleagues, friends, and supporters, brought tears to our eyes. It was obvious to all of us that if we could maintain this level of interest during the subsequent nine years, we could not only meet but overshoot the stated goal of the summit.

Robert Rubin, the secretary of the U.S. Treasury; Jim Wolfensohn, the president of the World Bank; Gus Speth, the administrator of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP); Carol Bellamy, the executive director of UNICEF; Dr. Nafis Sadik, the executive director of the United Nations Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA); Federico Mayor, the secretary-general of UNESCO; Huguette Labelle, the president of the International Development Agency; Brian Atwood, the administrator of USAID; and Fawzi al-Sultan, the president of IFAD, all proved to be inspiring speakers at the plenary sessions. Each one declared his or her uncompromising commitment to the alleviation and eradication of poverty through micro-credit.

The late Bella Abzug, cochair of the Council of Advocates, brought the delegates to their feet when she said, "Never, never, never underestimate the historic importance of what we do here today. And no matter how steep the pass, how discouraging the pace, I ask you to never give in and never give up." The delegates made their response very clear by thumping their applause.

When my turn came to speak at the operating plenary session of the summit, I found myself thinking of Jobra and my very first borrowers—those who were raised to think that they were nobodies, worth nothing, and who had become sudden heroes at this summit. It was those people, with their lives of simple dignity, who had radically changed me from a bird's-eye–view economist, teaching elegant theories in a classroom, to a worm's-eye–view practitioner, helping to introduce real and lasting change into people's lives. I sensed that here, in this hotel ballroom in Washington, D.C., we had enough political leadership to make things really change on a global level. At last we could reach the millions of poor in the world who were waiting for us to help them become self-sufficient.

I stood up and made the following statement:

As we assemble here, I ask myself, "What is the Microcredit Summit about? Is it just another Washington gala event?" To me, this summit is a grand celebration. We are celebrating the freeing of credit from the bondage of collateral. This summit pronounces the end of a long era of financial apartheid. This summit declares that credit is more than business. Like food, credit is a human right.

This summit is about setting the stage to unleash the human creativity and potential of the poor. This summit is to guarantee every poor person the chance to undertake responsibility and to reclaim his or her own human dignity.

This summit is to celebrate the success of millions of determined women who have transformed their lives from extreme poverty to dignified self-sufficiency through micro-credit programs.

This summit is not a fund-raising event. I repeat: This summit wants to inspire the world by putting together all the good news we have created during the past years. This summit wants to build will, wants to build capacity, wants to end poverty in the world.

Only one hundred years ago, men were still struggling to find a way to fly. Many people doubted them and looked upon them as crazy people. But in 1903, the Wright brothers flew their first plane. It stayed in the air for just twelve seconds. It traveled only 120 feet. At that moment the seed of a new world was planted. Only sixty-five years later, man confidently traveled to the moon, gathered up moon rocks, and returned to Earth. The whole world watched every moment of it on television.

In the micro-credit field, we are just testing our wings in a Wright brother's plane. We are covering 120 feet here, 500 feet there. Some find our plane unsafe, some find it clumsy, some find it unfit for the job. We can assure you we'll be ready with our booster rockets.

We believe that poverty does not belong in a civilized human society. It belongs in museums. This summit is about creating a process, which will send poverty to the museum.

Only sixty-five years after the twelve-second flight of the Wright brothers, man went to the moon. Sixty-five years after this summit, we will also go to our moon. We will create a poverty-free world.

With the energy that I feel in this room, I am more confident than ever before that we'll make it. Ladies and gentlemen, let us make it! Thank you.

 

As I finished my statement, I looked at the audience. I knew there was applause, but I did not hear it. I was trying to imagine a world without poverty. Could anyone really conceive of such a world? What would it be like? Would it really work?

The Microcredit Summit of 1997 set the goal to reach the world's 100 million poorest families with micro-credit, along with other financial services, preferably through the women in those families by 2005. During the Microcredit Summit +5, held in New York City in November 2002, we reviewed the progress made during the last five years toward achieving this goal. Figures compiled by the Microcredit Summit Campaign show that by the end of 2001 more that 54 million families around the world benefited from micro-credit. Of this number, 26.8 million are among the poorest, or those who live with less than $1 a day. This is impressive progress from 1997, when we could count only 7.6 million poorest families helped.

I am guessing that by the end of 2002 we'll have reached at least 35 million poorest families with micro-credit. If this turns out to be close to the real figure this would be significant progress. This would mean that we have crossed over a quarter of the path by 2001 and over a third of the path by 2002, and most likely we'll cross the halfway mark, or 50 million families, by 2003. Once we cross the halfway mark, we'll be better equipped psychologically and institutionally to cover the remaining half of the long journey. If this works out, it will mean that we have a good chance to make it to 100 million, or reasonably close to it, by 2005.

To me, a world without poverty means a world in which every person can take care of his or her basic life needs. In such a world, nobody would die of hunger or suffer from malnutrition. This is a goal world leaders have been calling for for decades, but they have never set out any way of achieving it.

Each day, some 35,000 children around the world die from hunger-related diseases. In a poverty-free world, no children would die of such causes. All people would have access to education and health-care services because they would be able to afford them. All state organizations that provide free or subsidized services for the poor could be done away with. There would be no need for welfare agencies, handouts, soup kitchens, food stamps, free schools, free hospital care. There would be no begging in the streets. State-run safety-net programs would have no rationale to exist. State–run social security programs and income-support programs would be unnecessary. Social structures in a poverty-free world would, of course, be quite different from those that exist today. But nobody would be at the mercy of anyone else, and that is what would make all the difference between a world without poverty and one riddled with it.

Finally, a poverty-free world would be economically much stronger and far more stable than the world is today.

The 20 percent of the world's inhabitants who currently live a life of extreme poverty would become income earners and income spenders. They would generate extra demand in the market, spurring growth in the world economy. They would bring their creativity and innovations into the marketplace to increase the world's productive capacity. And because people would become poor on a temporary and limited basis, the economy would probably not go through extreme swings. We would avoid boom-and-bust cycles and be able to surmount man-made disasters with greater ease.