Nobel Peace Prize winner Prof Muhammad Yunus shows Chief Adviser Fakhruddin Ahmed photos at the Nobel Peace Prize Exhibition at the Grameen Bank headquarters in Mirpur, Dhaka, yesterday. Photo: PID

Chief Adviser (CA) Fakhruddin Ahmed yesterday asserted that Bangladesh would be able to achieve its missions of eradicating poverty, making life easier and ensuring socioeconomic progress in all fields.

Visiting Chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee Prof Ole Danbolt Mjos hoped that Bangladesh would be able to see its dream come true through building a prosperous Bangladesh free from poverty.

The note of optimism was struck at the inauguration of Nobel Peace Prize exhibition at Grameen Bank headquarters in the city's Mirpur area. The head of the caretaker government inaugurated the exhibition arranged to mark the prestigious achievement of winning Nobel Peace Prize by Prof Muhammad Yunus and his brainchild Grameen Bank.

Prof Yunus, Nobel Committee Chairman Prof Ole Danbolt Mjos, Director, Nobel Peace Center, Bente Erichsen and Norwegian Ambassador in Dhaka Ingebjorg Stofring also spoke at the inaugural function.

The Norwegian Nobel Peace Centre, the Norwegian embassy and the host Grameen Bank jointly organised the exhibition aimed at encouraging the nation to go ahead.

Replicas of Nobel Peace Prize, video, audio and pictures of various efforts and success stories and historical events of Prof Yunus and Grameen Bank are on the display.

On October 13, 2006, the announcement of winning the Nobel Prize by Prof Yunus and Grameen Bank was made, while the prestigious prize was conferred on December 10, 2006 in Oslo.

Grameen Bank founder and Nobel laureate Prof Muhammad Yunus made welcome address at the function, attended by economists, diplomats, members of the Grameen Bank and distinguished personalities.

The chief adviser in his speech said the challenges facing Bangladesh are many and the present government has been trying its best over the past one and a half years to tackle some of these problems, in particular, systemic disarray.

The government is also striving to bring much- needed reforms in the executive, judiciary and electoral process so these institutions facilitate country's socioeconomic progress through a smooth run of the affairs.

“We have focused our efforts on establishing good governance in the country and put in place an enabling environment for realisation of our national aspirations,” he told the function.

The CA mentioned various statistics of socioeconomic progress in different fields in Bangladesh, including reducing poverty, decline in population growth rate and increase in gender parity.

Appreciating the performance of Grameen Bank and its founder, the CA thanked Prof Mjos and the Nobel Committee for choosing an outstanding Bangladeshi personality and the institution for the Nobel Peace Prize.

This prize rightly recognised the contributions of Prof Yunus and Grameen Bank, which has disbursed, to date, more than $ 7 billion in micro-credits to 7.5 million poor Bangladeshis, he mentioned.

The CA said presently around 80 percent of Bangladesh's poor households have access to micro-credit and expressed the hope that all of the poor in the country would have access to microfinance soon.

“Bangladeshis are making valuable contribution to resurgence of their motherland not only at home but also abroad,” the CA said.

He noted that expatriate Bangladeshis all over the world are excelling in varied fields such as science, medicine, information technology, architecture, academia and the corporate world.

“Bangladeshi migrant workers have also fanned out across the globe and they have established themselves in unfamiliar settings by adapting to local community and culture.”

The CA said many of them are doing very well and making enormous contributions to the national economy with remittances, and these remittances are having a direct impact on alleviation of poverty in the country.

He also mentioned extraordinary performance of members of Bangladesh Armed Forces in UN peacekeeping missions, which attained acclaim of the international community.