Banker for the poor sets up Bangkok base

Visiting Nobel Laureate Prof Muhammad Yunus- the "banker to the poor"- formally launched a centre in Bangkok yesterday aimed at helping the nation's rural poor improve and control their lives.

The Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) has set up the Yunus Centre, the first of it kind outside Bangladesh, to alleviate poverty through farming and agriculture-related businesses.

Prof Yunus pioneered the concept of microcredit and established the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh in 1983, earning a joint Nobel Peace Prize for creating economic and social development "from the bottom up".

Prof Yunus, also awarded the 2009 US Presidential Medal of Freedom, believes the basic problem for the poor is their lack of opportunity to develop ways to overcome their poverty.

"Poverty is not created by poor people; they had just never been given a chance," he said at yesterday's launch. "If we can imagine a world where nobody is poor, so we can create that world."

The Yunus Centre is in the north of metropolitan Bangkok. It will target poverty reduction and sustainability with an initial focus on agriculture and food security issues, encompassing areas such as production of food, food processing, logistics, economic factors and consumer choices.

The centre will study food's energy and its nutritional value, land ownership, soil quality, water use, subsidies, credit, market stability, market speculation, wholesale and retail distribution systems and insurance, Prof Yunus said.

It will provide an independent and open platform for addressing food security that has a direct impact on the poor and their lives. New business plans challenging conventional academic wisdom will be encouraged, leading to community-based knowledge, and opportunities for both women and men.

The Yunus Centre will host mainly temporary resident researchers, not full-time employees, inviting short-term fellows and providing resources and independence to pursue unconventional ideas.

Faculty members from AIT and other universities, and Master's or PhD post-doctoral students, could use business plans in study projects. Business people who have expertise, but have no formal qualifications, will also be invited as fellows to pursue further studies.

The centre will support experiments with sustainable social business enterprises and learn how they benefit local communities.

In this way, it will respond to the real needs of the region's poor by supporting business entrepreneurs, and maximising the effects of their activities on local communities, and by educating students about the importance of entrepreneurs in positive development of the region.

The centre's long-term impact would be as an incubator for business entrepreneurs, fostering local initiatives - such as seed capital, material resources and managerial advice.