Creating a World Without Poverty

WHAT IF YOU COULD HARNESS THE POWER of the free market to solve the problems of poverty, hunger and inequality? To some, it sounds impossible. But Nobel Peace Prize-winner Muhammad Yunus is doing exactly that. As founder of Grameen Bank, Yunus pioneered microcrdit, the innovative banking program that provides poor people-mainly women-with small loans they use to launch businesses and lift their families out of poverty. In the past thirty years, microcredit has spread to every continent and benefited over 100 million families. But Yunus remained unsatisfied. Much more could be done, he believed, if the dynamics of capitalism could be applied to humanity's greatest challenges. Now, in Creating a World Without Poverty, Yunus goes beyond microcredit to pioneer the idea of social business-a completely new way to use the creative vibrancy of business to tackle social problems from poverty and pollution to inadequate health care and lack of education. This book describes how Yunus-in partnership with some of the world's most visionary business leaders-has launched the world's first purposely designed social businesses. From collaborating with Danone to produce affordable, nutritious yogurt for malnourished children in Bangladesh to building eyecare hospitals that will save thousands of poor people from blindness, Creating a World Without Poverty offers a glimpse of the amazing future Yunus forecasts for a planet transformed by thousands of social businesses. Yunus's "Next Big idea" offers a pioneering model for nothing less than a new, more humane