Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, the founder of Grameen Bank, which is generally considered the first modern microcredit institution.

Muhammad Yunus was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for his work providing microcredit services to the poor.

1935 ), economist and microcredit pioneer Muhammad Yunus ( Ph. D. 1971 ), and former Vice President Al Gore have won the Nobel Prize.

Other major recent speakers include California gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman, California Attorney General Kamala Harris, former secretaries of State Condoleezza Rice, George Shultz, James Baker, and Madeleine Albright ; California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger ; Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner ; authors Christopher Hitchens, Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Greg Mortenson ; microcredit entrepreneur and Nobel Prize Winner Muhammad Yunus ; historian Victor Davis Hanson ; airline pilot Chesley Sullenberger ; CIA Director Leon Panetta ; former U. S. Comptroller General and Peter Peterson Foundation President David Walker, and business leaders Richard Kovacevich and David O ' Reilly.

* Muhammad Yunus wins Nobel Peace Prize for successful application of microcredit schemes to poor entrepreneurs in Bangladesh.

The Grameen Bank, which is generally considered the first modern microcredit institution, was founded in 1976 by Muhammad Yunus.

The application of neoliberal economics to microcredit has generated much debate among scholars and development practitioners, with some claiming that microcredit bank directors, such as Muhammad Yunus, apply the practices of loan sharks for their personal enrichment.

Over the past centuries practical visionaries, from the Franciscan monks who founded the community-oriented pawnshops of the 15th century, to the founders of the European credit union movement in the 19th century ( such as Friedrich Wilhelm Raiffeisen ) and the founders of the microcredit movement in the 1970s ( such as Muhammad Yunus ) have tested practices and built institutions designed to bring the kinds of opportunities and risk-management tools that financial services can provide to the doorsteps of poor people.

* 1971 – Muhammad Yunus carries out experiments on the applications of microcredit and microfinance in rural Bangladesh

Modern microcredit is generally considered to have originated with the Grameen Bank founded in Bangladesh in 1983.

Subsequently, many microcredit institutions have used the goal of empowering women to justify their disproportionate loans to women.

The principles of microcredit have also been applied in attempting to address several non-poverty-related issues.

Microcredit has been blamed for many suicides in India: aggressive lending by microcredit companies in Andhra Pradesh is said to have resulted in over 80 deaths in 2010.

For example, Cheston and Kuhn say that microcredit programs have the " potential " to transform power relations and empower the poor — both men and women.

In recent years, microcredit providers have shifted their focus from the objective of increasing the volume of lending capital available, to address the challenge of providing microfinance loans more affordably.

Due to the unbalanced emphasis on credit at the expense of microsavings, as well as a desire to link Western investors to the sector, peer-to-peer platforms have developed to expand the availability of microcredit through individual lenders in the developed world.

Most criticisms of microfinance have actually been criticisms of microcredit.

Microcredit has been blamed for many suicides in India: aggressive lending by microcredit companies in Andhra Pradesh is said to have resulted in over 80 deaths in 2010.

Thai Rak Thai's policies have included a 30 Baht per hospital visit scheme, an extended debt moratorium for farmers, 1 million Baht microcredit development funds for all rural districts, and the One Tambon One Product project.

It is resistant to drought and pests, and produces seeds containing 27-40 % oil, Large plantings and nurseries have been undertaken in India by many research institutions, and by women's self-help groups who use a system of microcredit to ease poverty among semiliterate Indian women.

Professor Dean Karlan from Yale University says that whilst microcredit generates benefits it isn't the panacea that it has been purported to be.

Though lending to groups has long been a key part of microcredit, microcredit initially began with the principle of lending to individuals.

The first randomized evaluation of the impact of introducing microcredit in a new market has been undertaken in slums in Hyderabad, India, in 2008.

While microcredit achieved a great deal, especially in urban and near-urban areas and with entrepreneurial families, its progress in delivering financial services in less densely populated rural areas has been slow.

Critics argue, however, that microcredit has not had a positive impact on gender relationships, does not alleviate poverty, has led many borrowers into a debt trap and constitutes a " privatization of welfare ".

The first randomized evaluation of microcredit, conducted by Esther Duflo and others, showed mixed results: there was no effect on household expenditure, gender equity, education or health, but the number of new businesses increased by one third compared to a control group.

Despite the use of solidarity circles in 1970s Jobra, Grameen Bank and other early microcredit institutions initially focused on individual lending.

Tazul Islam suggests that microcredit has a " positive impact on enterprise and household income and asset accumulation ".

Field officers who are in a position of power locally and are remunerated based on repayment rates sometimes use coercive and even violent tactics to collect installments on the microcredit loans.

The first randomized evaluation of the introduction of microcredit, carried out in Hyderabad in India, found no impact on women's decision-making.

Tazul Islam asserts a positive influence of microcredit on the level of education, health and nutrition.

However, the first randomized evaluation of microcredit, carried out in Hyderabad in India, did not find any evidence of an impact on education and health.

However, " there is no evidence that microcredit has any effect on health, education, or women ’ s empowerment, at least right now, eighteen months after they got the loans.

A film by the Danish journalist Tom Heinemann, The Micro Debt, alleges that microcredit in Bangladesh had little impact on poverty by highlighting the purported continued poverty of Sufiya Begum, the original loan recipient of Grameen, in Jobra Village.

* First APC Africa Hafkin prize named after connectivity pioneer Nancy Hafkin is won by the Fantsuam Foundation, a small microcredit scheme which goes on to be a key reference in Nigeria.

Hall serves on the Board of Advisors of Opportunity International, a charity that seeks to end poverty through microcredit lending to entrepreneurs.

The TRT championed populist policies with its focus on providing affordable and quality health care for all citizens, village-managed microcredit development funds, the government-sponsored One Tambon One Product program, and others.

As a result, a shift has taken place towards aid based on activation of local assets and stimulation measures such as microcredit.

WCCN operates a microcredit investment program that channels funds from U. S. investors to provide financing for low-income Latin American entrepreneurs and small farmers so they can grow their operations and work their way out of poverty.

Discussions about a mission to fight poverty, create jobs and transform lives by empowering the poor in developing countries using innovative savings and microcredit programs, business training and spiritual development led to the formation of Five Talents.

As of 2012, microcredit is widely used in developing countries and is presented as having " enormous potential as a tool for poverty alleviation.

Critics argue that microcredit has driven poor households into a debt trap, that the money from loans is used for consumption, that men actually use the money for which their female relatives get into debt and that microcredit does not alleviate poverty or improve health and education.

Milford Bateman, the author of Why Doesn't Microfinance Work ?, argues that microcredit offers only an " illusion of poverty reduction ".

The work of Rutherford, Wright and others has caused practitioners to reconsider a key aspect of the microcredit paradigm: that poor people get out of poverty by borrowing, building microenterprises and increasing their income.

Milford Bateman, the author of Why Doesn't Microfinance Work ?, argues that microcredit offers only an " illusion of poverty reduction ".

WhyHunger advances long-term solutions to hunger and poverty by supporting community-based organizations that empower individuals and build self-reliance, i. e., offering job training, education and after school programs ; increasing access to housing and healthcare ; providing microcredit and entrepreneurial opportunities ; teaching people to grow their own food ; and assisting small farmers.