"When combined with information and communication technologies, microcredit can unleash new opportunities for the world's poorest entrepreneurs and thereby revitalize the village economies they serve."
-- Madeleine K. Albright and John Doerr

"Microfinance is an idea whose time has come." ~ Kofi Annan "Microfinance recognizes that poor people are remarkable reservoirs of energy and knowledge. And while the lack of financial services is a sign of poverty, today it is also understood as an untapped opportunity to create markets, bring people in from the margins and give them the tools with which to help themselves." ~ Kofi Annan

"Give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day. Give a woman microcredit, she, her husband, her children and her extended family will eat for a lifetime." -- Bono

"Microfinance stands as one of the most promising and cost-effective tools in the fight against global poverty."
-- Jonathan Morduch, Chair, UN Expert Group on Poverty Statistics

"Microloans enable the poor to lift themselves out of poverty through entrepreneurship."
-- Pierre Omidyar

"Microcredit is about giving hope." -- Natalie Portman * Small loans can transform lives, especially the lives of women and children. The poor can become empowered instead of disenfranchised. Homes can be built, jobs can be created, businesses can be launched, and individuals can feel a sense of worth again. -- Natalie Portman

"The key to ending extreme poverty is to enable the poorest of the poor to get their foot on the ladder of development. The ladder of development hovers overhead, and the poorest of the poor are stuck beneath it. They lack the minimum amount of capital necessary to get a foothold, and therefore need a boost up to the first rung. " -- Jeffrey Sachs

"One of the most distressing consequences of globalization is the increase in the wealth of a few while hundreds of millions of people still live in poverty. However, microfinance is a powerful tool to begin to change that."
-- Marilou van Golstein Brouwers

My vision for the future? Two things: to make credit a human right so that each individual human being will have the opportunity to take loans and implement his or her ideas so that self-exploration becomes possible. And second: that it will lead to a world where nobody has to suffer from poverty - a world completely free from poverty. -- Muhammad Yunus This is not charity. This is business: business with a social objective, which is to help people get out of poverty. -- Muhammad Yunus

End Poverty Day - October 17