The Path to Peace Through Development

By Bill Shore | October 14, 2006

The citation awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to Muhammad Yunus and The Grameen Bank in recognition of their work with microcredit says that it is for “their efforts to create economic and social development from below.”

What is left unsaid is why the committee awarded an economist and banker the Peace Prize rather than the prize for economics. Yunus has never negotiated cease fires or peace treaties. He has not been involved in the hot spots of Iraq or the Middle East, or Darfur. He has played no role in the nuclear nonproliferation issues often favored by the Nobel Committee.

But the implication of course could not be more clear: the path to peace lies not through arms or invasions but through creating opportunity, reducing poverty and promoting economic justice.

Muhammad Yunus finds himself taking his place alongside Shimon Perez, Nelson Mandela, Mikhail Gorbachev, Jimmy Carter and other Nobel Peace Prize laureates, not because he played a role in ending a conflict, but because he has a vision of how economic opportunity for all could prevent conflict in the first place.

It’s a very different kind of choice than the Nobel Committee has made in the past, and one that offers hope for a different, more promising future.