Redesign global financial system
Nobel-laureate Prof Muhammad Yunus suggested that world leaders now get down to redesigning the global financial system as it crumbled in 2008 amid economic recession.
“The global financial crisis offers world leaders an opportunity to 'retool, redesign and reconceptualise' the system that crumbled in 2008,” said the micro-finance pioneer at the European Development Days function on Thursday.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is leading Bangladesh delegation at the function. She is scheduled to address it today.
Yunus, managing director of Grameen Bank, made the call at an opening-day plenary session titled 'The Response to the Global Economic Downturn', where world leaders and policymakers dealt deeply on the economic crisis and ways out as well as the threats of global climate change.
"This is a good chance to redesign the financial system and not just put a band aid on it,” he said, drawing the attention of the world community to the stark reality that two-thirds of the world population is left out.
That is not going to work. “Why not be inclusive?" said the Nobel laureate to underline the imperative that development should be given a human face, the deprived ones be helped out and taken together in the forward march.
He noted that his Grameen Bank micro-credit scheme for lending to the poor and other similar initiatives show that inclusive projects can be successful.
Civil society must be given a greater role in the economic system, Yunus argued. The prevailing model favours profit-driven businesses for many activities, with the government taking responsibility for others. "Why not the people?" he posed another question before his global audience.
European Development Days is an annual forum organised by the European Commission and the country holding the Presidency of the EU--currently Sweden.
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