The 2006 Nobel Peace Prize winner, Prof. Muhammad Yunus has partnered the African Development Bank to launch the Holistic Social Business Movement (HSBM), a programme both say is a social business project for Africa.
The AfDB and the Yunus Social Business have selected Uganda, Tunisia and Togo as the beneficiary countries for the pilot project which will soon be expanded to other African nations.
The two-year programme is said to be implemented in two phases: first, through awareness raising and capacity-building of stakeholders in Social Business; second, with the implementation of social business incubation funds in Tunisia and Togo.
The initiative was announced when Mr Yunus recently paid a visit to the headquarters of the AfDB in Tunis, Tunisia.
According to the AfDB, “This programme is part of the Bank’s Joint Initiative on Youth Employment in Africa, in partnership with the African Union Commission, United Nations Economic Commission for Africa and the International Labour Organization.
The HSBM programme will be funded by a grant from the Government of Japan and co-financed by the AfDB.
The three countries were selected on the basis of an assessment of their youth unemployment rates. Should the pilot programs prove effective, the Bank aims to expand the initiative to other African countries.
Prof Yunus is a Bangladeshi banker and economist. He established the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh in 1983, fueled by the belief that credit is a fundamental human right. His objective was to help poor people escape from poverty by providing loans on terms suitable to them and by teaching them a few sound financial principles so they could help themselves.
