Museums are the only place that one should find poverty, says Prof Mohammad Yunus, founder and managing director of the Grameen Bank, one of India’s largest financial institutions.

Yunus, who was awarded an honorary degree in economics by the University of Venda (Univen) on Friday, says he strongly believes that a poverty-free world can be created. “All we need to do is to help each person to unleash the energy and creativity inside him or her - once this can be done, poverty will disappear very fast,” he said during his brief visit to Limpopo

He went on to explain how he started to establish a successful banking institution through a process of micro-lending.

In 1974, Yunus had found it difficult to teach elegant theories of economics in the classroom against the backdrop of sever famine in Bangladesh. Suddenly he felt the emptiness of those theories in the face of crushing hunger and poverty, and it brought him to the issue of poor people’s struggle and helplessness in finding the smallest amounts of money to support their efforts to make a living, whilst paying high interest rates to lenders.”

He then started a micro lending operation from his own pocket. Against the advice of banks and government, Yunus continued to give out micro loans, and in 1983 formed the Grameen Bank, meaning village bank, founded on principles of trust and solidarity.

The bank currently gives loans to six million poor people, and the borrowers own the bank. The repayment rate is 99 percent and the bank makes huge profits. Grameen’s methods are used more than 50 countries, including the USA, Canada, France, the Netherlands and Norway.

Income generating loans, housing loans, student loans and micro enterprise loans to poor families, are among the services Grameen offers. It also gives interest-free loans to beggars and offers attractive savings, including pension fund and insurance products to its members.

Yunus believes South Africa has the potential to become the first poverty-free country in the world, and has urged financiers to start a process to achieve this objective.