What Kind of World We Wish to Leave Behind
By Sam Daley-Harris

The world stands at a crossroads. One path leads to the end of poverty by 2025. On this path, extreme poverty is cut in half and the other Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are achieved by 2015, goals set by more than 180 heads of state and government at the UN Millennium Summit in 2000.

But if we are not vigilant and committed, we could easily follow a second path, and see only limited change to the harrowing realities faced by far too many people on this planet: one billion people living on less than US$ 1 a day; 100 million children of primary school age not in school; and 29,000 children under the age of five dying each day from largely preventable malnutrition and disease. Which course will we take?

The Microcredit Summit Campaign leads the way toward the first path, toward the end of poverty. Our compass is the Campaign’s new goals for 2015: 1) reaching 175 million of the world’s poorest families with microcredit, affecting 875 million family members and 2) ensuring 100 million of the world’s poorest families rise above the US$ 1 a day threshold, lifting some 500 million family members out of extreme poverty. These new goals will be launched at the Global Microcredit Summit 2006 to be held in Halifax, Canada, November 12-15, 2006.

The microfinance movement was created by development revolutionaries, people who broke the rules of banking and overcame the failures of international development. They offered tiny, uncollateralized loans to poor, illiterate women and successfully reached and empowered the very poor through self-sustaining institutions, something international development still struggles to do.

Several months ago Grameen Bank founder Muhammad Yunus shared the Bank’s most recent statistics with me. That same night I had an opportunity to offer a toast and used the statistics he had shared. I toasted the 70,000 beggars, as the bank now offers $10 loans to beggars to help them purchase items to sell so they might leave begging. I toasted the 200,000 village phone ladies, because even though GrameenPhone has 7 million phone users in the cities, they also have 200,000 women in rural areas that use their cell phone as a business. The women need a photo voltaic cell to charge the phone because there is no electricity in most of the villages. I toasted the six million clients because the bank just served its six millionth client. And I toasted the 30 million family members because with five in a family, six million clients affects 30 million family members.

Two months later I received the most extraordinary e-mail from Fazle Abed the Chairman of BRAC in Bangladesh, another of the microfinance leaders who will be coming to Halifax in November. BRAC has 4 million microcredit clients affecting 20 million family members. BRAC also has more than 30,000 BRAC schools, one-room schools for 10 and 11 year olds who never made it to first grade—catch up schools really. In his book The End of Poverty, Prof. Jeffrey Sachs marveled at the fact that the BRAC clients he met only had one or two children, yet 30 years ago Bangladeshi rural women typically had six or seven children, a profound change in attitude and behavior. Two years ago BRAC received a $1 million prize from the Gates Foundation for its work in health. Bill Gates visited BRAC last December and was quoted in The Washington Post as saying his visit with the BRAC microcredit clients was “like a religious experience.”

I sent out an announcement recently about continuing my work as Director of the Microcredit Summit Campaign and expanding my work with RESULTS, the citizens’ lobbying organization I founded 26 years ago that’s focuses on creating the political will to end hunger and the worst aspects of poverty. I mentioned that I will turn 60 this year and wanted to make the best use of the next ten years of my life. This is what Fazle Abed, the founder of BRAC, wrote me in response:

“I have just received your note regarding the announcement of upcoming additional responsibility you will be taking up as you turn 60 this year. Since I reached the more mature age of 70 couple of months ago we will certainly need to talk at the earliest opportunity as to what kind of world we wish to leave behind for the future generations and what we could accomplish in the remaining time allotted to us.”

Isn’t this the question we should be asking: “What kind of world we wish to leave behind for future generations” and isn’t it such an honor to have this kind of conversation with a person like Fazle Abed or with your colleagues in IYPF?

Sam Daley-Harris is founder of RESULTS, an international citizens’ lobbying organization committed to generating the political will to end hunger and the worst aspects of poverty and is director of the Microcredit Summit Campaign.

For more information see www.microcreditsummit.org and www.results.org.