2006 Nobel Peace Prize

The 2006 Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank. The prize was announced by the Norwegian Nobel Committee in Oslo on 13 October 2006.

The citation

The citation reads: "for their efforts to create economic and social development from below". They share the prize equally.

The laureates

Muhammad Yunus was born in 1940 in Chittagong, British India (now Bangladesh). The Grameen Bank was founded in 1976.

Why it matters

Yunus, an economist, founded the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh to lend small sums to poor people, especially women, who could not borrow from ordinary banks. The idea, known as microcredit, has spread around the world.

The prize

The prize is worth 10 million Swedish kronor, divided between the laureates. It will be presented in Oslo on 10 December, the anniversary of the death of Alfred Nobel, the Swedish inventor of dynamite whose will founded the prizes in 1895.