By Muhammad Yunus

Financial crises illustrate a fundamental flaw in the way the current financial system is organized. The financial institutions and banking systems of advanced economies focused on big banks and big customers. This system embodies a kind of financial apartheid; two thirds of the world's populations are excluded. Unless we bring these people into the financial system, crises will keep recurring.

Grameen finances everyone. It has demonstrated that even beggars can be financed. We have around 100,000 beggars in the programme: they borrow small amounts of money to buy goods that they can offer for sale when begging from door to door. Some have left begging this way and started their own businesses.

Grameen Bank has 8.3 million borrowers, of whom 97% are women. The bank borrows no money from the outside, it is entirely self-financed. It takes deposits from people and gives small loans to poor people. So far it has given more than $10 billion in microloans, with a recovery rate of 97%.

The issue for this audience is how to make this story happen in Africa. Women in Africa are at the forefront of the fight for equality of financial access. Microfinance already exists in Africa. But, in my view, it should be done by specialized institutions, not commercial banks or NGOs. The issue is how to make such microfinance institutions part of the mainstream banking system. In Bangladesh, a special banking law was created for Grameen Bank. I think we should aim for a banking law for banks for the poor.

In another session at the Clinton Global Initiative, Professor Yunus, who is a member of the Presidential Economic Advisory Council of Haiti, along with President Clinton, former President Uribe of Colombia, and others, appointed by President Martelli of Haiti, participated in the intensive discussion on Haiti's future economic and social actions. Professor Yunus emphasized the critical role the youth of Haiti can play in rebuilding Haiti, and argued that social business would have a tremendous impact on the reconstruction of Haiti's economy and social fabric. In a separate ceremony he signed an MOU with Luis Alberto Moreno, the President of Inter American Development Bank, to undertake joint programs in Haiti. A social business fund for Haiti has already been established. This fund will provide funding to anyone wishing to set up a social business in the country.

On 22nd September, Professor Yunus participated in a plenary session at the Clinton Global Initiative titled "Engaging Boys and Men as Allies for Long-term Change" and the other speakers included former President of Chile, Michelle Bachelet and President of Rwanda, Paul Kagame. During this plenary, Professor Yunus said, "It is not just the responsibility of women alone to pull their families out of poverty, but also that of the men. And men and boys have to stand in solidarity with women and girls as they fight for their empowerment."

UKM's laureate-in-residence believes that society's most pressing problems can be solved through social business, a revolutionary idea that has caught on around the world.

A GREAT man came to fulfil his laureate-in-residence obligations at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) in July. Dr Muhammad Yunus, who founded Grameen Bank and pioneered the concept of microcredit as a viable business, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006.

The laureate-in-residence is an initiative to inspire and spur students as well as staff in UKM to want to do better, work harder and have the courage to dream and try new things that will bring great change to the world. It teaches us that great ideas can come from anywhere and great things are possible.

Listening to his story about how Grameen Bank came to be established, one cannot help but be inspired by the vision of a man who not only challenged the assumption of conventional banks that the poor were not credit worthy, but had the courage to go ahead and demonstrate that lending to the poor was a viable and profitable business.

Delivering his professorial lecture at UKM to a packed hall of academicians, university students, pupils from neighbouring schools including PermataPintar, representatives from the private sector and non-profit institutions as well as civil society, Dr Muhammad shone through as a person who has remained humble and unassuming although he is celebrated by the world.

His life mission to help the poor began in the early 1970s when he was heading the Department of Economics at Chittagong University.

Bangladesh was hit by a terrible famine, worsening the misery of a people who were already suffering from the aftermath of war, floods, droughts and monsoons.

Finding emptiness in teaching elegant theories of economics when millions of Bangladeshis were distressed, Dr Muhammad ventured to the neighbouring village of Jobra on one fateful day in 1974 hoping to make himself useful to at least one person.

One of the most important weeks for the international development community is just around the corner - the opening of the 66th United Nations General Assembly. Beginning September 19, world leaders will gather in New York City to discuss the full spectrum of global issues, from climate change to the famine in Somalia. This year there is also a special focus on the prevention and control of non-communicable diseases, which are a leading cause of mortality in the world today. This gathering of world leaders will be a powerhouse of strategic, solutions-oriented thinking, but they cannot solve the world's toughest challenges without the help of supporters - everyday, ordinary people like you and me - from around the world.

The UN has a proven track record of encouraging and fostering grassroots engagement to solving global problems. During this seminal week in New York City, I hope individuals will consider ways they can personally get involved in the important work of the UN - whether it's as a volunteer, donor, or simply by staying informed and spreading the word through their networks. As a Board Member of the United Nations Foundation, I have had the opportunity to see the lasting impact of global grassroots engagement. I have been particularly inspired by the dedication of youth advocates, who work relentlessly to tackle the root causes of some of the world's most pressing problems.

The Journal of Social Business: Social Business and New Economics Paradigm. Issue: 2; published by the Centre for Development, Scotland.

Economic analysis is about understanding the workings of the economic system. Many elegant economic theories exist to analyse wealth-creating productive activities. Conventional economic theory focuses on a one-dimensional world.

Prof Andrew Skinner, a pre-eminent scholar of Adam Smith, has argued that Smith -- the great economist -- would have had every sympathy with Nobel Peace Laureate Muhammad Yunus' rejection of the economists' 'one-dimensional treatment of human activity', and he joins him to say: "People are exceedingly multi-dimensional in what Adam Smith explained as the multifaceted nature of human behaviour -- while they have their selfish dimension, at the same time, they also have their selfless dimension."

Capitalism together with technological advancement and the role of the market that has grown up around conventional theories makes only little room for the selfless dimension of people. Despite Adam Smith's observations and reasonable concerns over the miseries of the poorer majority in society, economists who have followed his ideas have failed to explore the impact of the selfless notion of people as a driver of behaviour for economic action (as, for instance, in charitable and philanthropic activities). As such, economic theory has so far been less effective to integrate these other drivers of behaviour in mainstream economic models.

Furthermore, the writings of Adam Smith were seized upon by traditional economists to argue that the 'invisible hand' of the market always creates the best of all possible worlds. This undermined investigation of the 'real' challenge of economics: the design of sustainable systems -- the notion of entrepreneurship was distorted into 'top-down' value extraction as distinct from value-creating 'bottom-up' possibilities.