Yunus launches social business in Nepal

Nepalese President Ram Baran Yadav receives Nobel Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus at Rashtrapati Bhavan in Nepal on Friday. Photo: Yunus Centre

Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus is now in Nepal to attend a series of high-level meetings on social business and microfinance organised by the Confederation of Nepalese Industries (CNI).
On the first day of his three-day visit on Friday, Prof Yunus addressed a national-level summit of microfinance practitioners in Nepal, attended by 300 participants and organised by the Reserve Bank of Nepal, CNI and Rural Microfinance Development Centre.
"We are grateful to you Professor Yunus for innovating such a modern form of technology for poverty alleviation as microfinance," said Nepalese Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai, who is also the vice chairperson of the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) and the chief guest of the summit.
"It has proven to be a major tool for poverty alleviation, and has made millions of poor families to upgrade their economic status in the society. Nepal followed this path since 1992."
There are currently 130 organisations in Nepal that are undertaking microcredit, reaching more than 1.8 million families. Most of the organisations follow the Grameen system with support from Grameen Trust.
Bhattarai also thanked the Nobel laureate for his innovative concept of social business as an effective way to tackle social problems, and said he would like to come to Bangladesh as a student to learn about social business.
Yunus recommended taking microcredit to the next level in Nepal by broadening the work by using social business as a tool to solve social problems.
He stressed particularly the role of citizens' especially young people in championing social business.
"Making money is happiness, but making other people happy is a super happiness."
Hisila Yami, wife of Nepal's prime minister, expressed her desire to visit Bangladesh soon to learn from Bangladeshi poor rural women.
President of Nepal Ram Baran Yadav received Yunus at Rashtrapati Bhaban and thanked him for coming to Nepal, and for sharing his experience in social business as ways to help Nepal overcome some of its difficult problems.
Yunus pledged to work with the Nepalese government to change institutional designs needed to help microcredit grow faster. Yadav also offered Yunus to be the patron for social business in Nepal and monitor its progress.
Later, the Nobel laureate on behalf of Yunus Centre and Binod Chaudhury, president of Chaudhury Group, announced a collaboration to create a $1 million social business fund for Nepal to fund creative social businesses that will tackle the problems faced by Nepal in the areas of energy, healthcare, women's empowerment and environmental protection.
Ideas for social businesses will be invited from young people, and the best business plans will be financed by the fund, Yunus Centre said in a statement yesterday.
Chaudhury Group and other businesses will invest in the fund where Yunus Centre will provide technical support.