The Yunus Centre is thrilled to announce the winners of our Social Business Essay Competition 2011. There were many, many qualified applicants, and reviewing the essays was truly a pleasure.

Our winning submissions were authored by:

Monica Islam - North South University

Md. Jannatul Habib - Jahangirnagar University

Congratulations to both Monica and Habib! As their prize for submitting winning essays, they will travel to Vienna, Austria in November to attend the Global Social Business Summit!

Thanks again to all of our participants, and please keep watching the our website, our Facebook page and our Twitter site for information on our upcoming activities and the latest news in the world of social business!

"There is no ground for belittling the contribution of microcredit just as there is no ground for exaggerating its contribution," said Siddiq R Osmani, professor of development economics at the University of Ulster in the UK.

"Other factors such as employment opportunities and education are more important. Clearly, there is much more to poverty reduction than microcredit, but there is a role for microcredit as well, especially for the poor."

He was presenting a paper at a national seminar on "Asset Accumulation and Poverty Dynamics in Rural Bangladesh: The Role of Microcredit" at the auditorium of Palli Karma-Sahayak Foundation (PKSF) in the capital.

Nobel Peace Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus was in Seoul on 14-16 August to discuss social business with business and political leaders of South Korea.

H.E. Kim Moon-Soo, Governor of Gyeonggi province, who is interested in setting up a Social Business Fund in collaboration with the Yunus Centre in Bangladesh, hosted a dinner in honour of Professor Yunus. During this visit Professor Yunus also met with the Korean parliamentarians from both ruling party and the opposition, to discuss how to expedite the process of achieving MDGs globally. The MPs expressed their deep interest in applying social businesses for achieving the MDGs. Their discussions also included issues relating to microcredit in Korea. A meeting of the Parliamentarians was organized by Ambassador Dho Young-shim, member of the UN MDG Advocacy group, which is working to achieve the MDGs globally, under the leadership of the UN Secretary General Ban ki-Moon.

Professor Yunus delivered a public lecture on microcredit program at the Ewha Women's University organized by the Ewha Centre for Peace Studies. This lecture was held at the Press Centre of Seoul. Professor Yunus was received by the President of the university and had lunch with Deans and faculty members. Professor Yunus was made the Distinguished Professor of Ewha Women's University in 2007, and is invited to give a lecture every year at the University.

WASHINGTON, Aug. 16, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- According to a report released by the Microcredit Summit Campaign, a program of the U.S.-based advocacy group RESULTS Educational Fund, nearly 9 million Indian households involved in microfinance - including approximately 45 million family members, on net - rose above the $1.25 a day threshold between 1990 and 2010. This good news comes during a difficult time for the sector in India and elsewhere. Microfinance institutions offer loans that can start at $50 and other financial services that enable the poor to start or expand small businesses.

A survey of more than 15,000 Indian households, led by Shubhashis Gangopadhyay and carried out by Bappaditya Mukhopadhyay and Sambit Rath of the India Development Foundation (IDF), found that a dramatic number of families moved out of poverty between 1990 and 2010. In point of fact, the microfinance sector in India barely existed before 1998. The survey was largely completed, however, before the microfinance crisis in Andhra Pradesh erupted at the end of 2010 greatly reducing the number of households served.

"This report is good news, coming out seven months after a similar survey showed significant progress in Bangladesh," said Sam Daley-Harris, Director of the Microcredit Summit Campaign. "Neither survey was designed to assign causality to microfinance, but there is a significant correlation in both India and Bangladesh between the presence of microfinance and movement out of poverty in the rural areas of both countries, especially in the early years. The survey period in Bangladesh reflected significant movement out of poverty between 1990 and 1998 followed by a dramatic drop due to massive floods in 1998. In India, the 'flood' might be seen in the crisis in the microfinance sector but that crisis is not reflected in these findings."