Nobel Laureate Prof Muhammad Yunus met Myanmar democratic icon and Nobel Peace laureate Daw Aung San Suu Kyi at her home in Yangon.
During the first-ever meeting between the two Nobel laureates, Yunus briefed Suu Kyi about social business programmes in Bangladesh, including micro-credit, healthcare, education and vocational training, renewable energy social businesses as well as equity investment for the development of enterprises by the unemployed young people of Grameen Bank families, said a Yunus Centre Press release on Monday.
He thanked her for her support to Grameen micro-credit replication programme set up by Grameen Trust in Delta Zone of Myanmar in 1997, which is now operated by PACT, an international NGO, and is the largest micro-credit programme serving 700,000 clients in Myanmar currently.
Prof Yunus gave his views on the potential of close collaboration between the two countries and the need to resolve the outstanding issues to bring the countries closer to each other.
He said that he has been proposing to Saarc countries to invite Myanmar to join Saarc, and invited Suu Kyi to support this proposal on behalf of her party.
Suu Kyi showed her interest in the initiatives of Prof Yunus around the world. She briefed him about the work she has been doing in her constituency to bring development to rural communities.
She recollected her earlier visit to Bangladesh and expressed her interest to visit again soon.
Meanwhile, Suu Kyi would like to send a team to visit Bangladesh soon and also send delegates to attend the Social Business Summit in Mexico City in November 2014.
Prof Yunus invited her to the Nobel Peace Laureates Summit to be held in Atlanta, USA in November of 2015. Prof Yunus is the Co-Chair of the Summit along with President Jimmy Carter.
Yunus arrived in Yangon on Saturday on a three-day visit to Myanmar at the invitation of British Council in Myanmar. He has been invited to speak to members of the government, civil society and business community about the potential of social business and the role of business in the country’s development.
-UNB
