Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim

Excellencies,

Distinguished Guests,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Assalamu Alaikum.

I am delighted to be present here at this inaugural ceremony of the Nobel Peace Prize exhibition at Grameen Bank, jointly organized by the Norwegian Nobel Peace Centre, the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Dhaka and the Grameen Bank. It is a great pleasure for me to warmly welcome Professor Ole Danbolt Mjos, to Bangladesh, and Ms. Bente Erichsen, Director of the Norwegian Nobel Peace Centre, for travelling all the way from Norway to inaugurate this exhibition. I extend my greetings and best wishes to everybody present at this august gathering.

When Professor Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank received the Nobel Peace Prize for 2006, there was an eruption of joy across the country. It was one of the great moments in the history of our young nation. We all felt great pride and there was a sense of momentous achievement sweeping across the whole nation. Thank you Professor Mjos and the Norwegian Nobel Committee for choosing an outstanding Bangladeshi personality and the institution he created for the Nobel Peace Prize.

This prize rightly recognized the contributions of Professor Yunus and the Grameen Bank, which has provided till now more than US dollar 7 billion as loans to 7.5 million poor Bangladeshis. Alongside financing employment generation, Grameen Bank has also demonstrated that our poor, and particularly women, are hard-working, creative and credit-worthy. If provided the opportunity, they can uplift their own lives and livelihoods.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I have seen first hand the impact of micro-credit in Bangladesh; in my previous role as head of Palli Karma Sahayak Foundation (PKSF), I worked closely with micro-finance institutions including Grameen Bank to widen and deepen the coverage of micro-credit network throughout Bangladesh. Presently, around 80 percent of our poor households have access to micro-credit and it has become a permanent feature of our financial landscape. We are hopeful that soon we can proudly claim all poor households in the country will have access to credit. Grameen’s methodology has now spread all over the world and it is being replicated in many countries of Asia, Africa, Europe and America.

Professor Yunus and the Grameen family are now venturing beyond micro-credit. They are striving to create social businesses with focus on discharging social responsibilities, in areas like healthcare, provision of nutrition and education. We wish them all success in these entrepreneurial endeavours for social uplift.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Bangladesh is home to a 3000 year old civilization. This region has historically known greatness in both culture and prosperity. Our cultural heritage was well-known throughout the world and Bangladeshi fabrics and textiles, such as muslin, were coveted in the royal courts of Europe. We. therefore, firmly believe in the inherent potentials of Bangladesh and its people.

We have been working hard over the past few decades to regain what was lost earlier. In recent years, Bangladesh economy has been growing at an average rate of 6 percent. The poverty rate has fallen from an estimated 74% in the early 1970s to about 40% in 2005. This decline continues. And the good news is that there has not been any increase in inequality. The conditions of the poor are improving steadily.

Rapid population growth had been a major concern for Bangladesh, one of the most densely populated countries on earth. This growth rate has now fallen sharply, from an annual average of 3 percent in the 1970s to 1.4 percent in recent years. This slowdown means more families have the resources to take care of their children and provide them with decent opportunities for education. It also means that millions of our women have been freed from an endless cycle of child-bearing and child-rearing and now have the leverage to help their families improve living standards.

Young women – both workers in our booming garments industries and millions of micro-credit borrowers – have shown what vital contributions they can make towards economic prosperity of Bangladesh.

The decline in our population growth has been driven by improvements in healthcare and spread of education. Bangladesh has also made advances in maternal and child healthcare, resulting in decline of mortality on both counts. Bangladesh is also making good strides in improving educational opportunities for children. Gender parity among school-going boys and girls has been one of our outstanding achievements in recent years.

Bangladesh’s ability to respond to disasters has been acclaimed all around and is being cited as an example in many places of the world. It was because of the preparedness and sheer resilience of the Bangladeshi people that we could successfully overcome the aftermath of two consecutive floods and a cyclone last year.

This does not mean that our problems are few. Indeed, the challenges for Bangladesh are many. The present government has been trying its best over the past one and a half year to address some of these problems, in particular systemic problems like corruption, which has prevented us from realizing our true potential. We have also been striving to bring much needed reforms to the executive, judiciary and the electoral process, so that these institutions facilitate our socio-economic progress. We have focused our efforts to establish good governance in the country and put in place an enabling environment for the realisation of our national aspirations.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

As you know, the Bangladeshis are making valuable contributions to the resurgence of their motherland, not only within their country, but also abroad. Expatriate Bangladeshis all over the world are excelling in such varied fields as science, medicine, information technology, architecture, academia and the corporate world. The contribution of our armed forces and the police to UN Peace Keeping Operations all over the world has been lauded by the international community. Our peacemakers have received the love, respect and praise of local communities wherever they served.

Bangladeshi migrant workers have also fanned out across the globe. They have established themselves in unfamiliar settings by adapting to local conditions and cultures. Many of them are doing very well and making contributions to the host countries through remittances. These remittances are having a direct impact on alleviation of poverty in the country.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

This exhibition will undoubtedly preserve and display an important moment in our national life. As professor Mjos just said, it is a powerful exhibition to remind that we have missions to fulfil - mission to eradicate poverty from Bangladesh, mission to make life easier, mission to make socio-economic progress in all fields. And it will also remind us that we have example that we can and we will achieve those missions. I am also happy to know that a separate exhibition will open today to acquaint Bangladeshi school-children with Nobel Peace Prize medals and diplomas. It is quite appropriate that there will be both a permanent display and one that will travel through Bangladesh for people all over the country.

In conclusion, I thank the sponsors and wish this exhibition a great success.

Thank you all, ladies and gentlemen.