foreign assistance

The recipients for this year Medal of Freedom have been announced and include Nobel prize winner, Muhammed Yunus. When Yunus (then the chair of the rural economics program at the University of Chittagong) launched the Grameen Bank as a pilot research project in 1976 in a post-war Bangladesh, his motive was to extend credit and foster micro-entrepreneurship amongst the poorest that were largely ignored by the formal Banking sector. Since then, Grameen has become synonymous with micro-credit and has inspired, along with other pioneers such as SEWA and ACCION, many other lenders to mushroom across the world. However, its own evolution as an organization reflects advancements in the microfinance field as a whole, which is increasingly shifting its focus from credit to savings.

As all of Washington-- and indeed, the United States, if not the world-- awaits with anticipation President-elect Barack Obama's inauguration next week, a glimmering of possibility regarding a more prominent role for asset-building strategies was evident in Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's confirmation hearing yesterday.  Giving a nod to toward social development, microfinance, and bottom-up empowerment as key elements of a foreign policy strategy, we can't help but suggest how an asset-building framework would enhance the impact of such strategies.