Executive Committee

Muhammad Yunus was born in 28th June, 1940 in the village of Bathua, in Hathazari, Chittagong, the business centre of what was then Eastern Bengal. He was the third of 14 children of whom five died in infancy. His father was a successful goldsmith who always encouraged his sons to seek higher education. But his biggest influence was his mother, Sufia Khatun, who always helped any poor that knocked on their door. This inspired him to commit himself to eradication of poverty. His early childhood years were spent in the village. In 1947, his family moved to the city of Chittagong, where his father had the jewelry business.

In 1974, Professor Muhammad Yunus, a Bangladeshi economist from Chittagong University, led his students on a field trip to a poor village. They interviewed a woman who made bamboo stools, and learnt that she had to borrow the equivalent of 15p to buy raw bamboo for each stool made. After repaying the middleman, sometimes at rates as high as 10% a week, she was left with a penny profit margin. Had she been able to borrow at more advantageous rates, she would have been able to amass an economic cushion and raise herself above subsistence level.

Realizing that there must be something terribly wrong with the economics he was teaching, Yunus took matters into his own hands, and from his own pocket lent the equivalent of 17 to 42 basket-weavers. He found that it was possible with this tiny amount not only to help them survive, but also to create the spark of personal initiative and enterprise necessary to pull themselves out of poverty.

Against the advice of banks and government, Yunus carried on giving out ‘micro-loans’, and in 1983 formed the Grameen Bank, meaning ‘village bank’ founded on principles of trust and solidarity. In Bangladesh today, Grameen has 1,084 branches, with 12,500 staff serving 2.1 million borrowers in 37,000 villages. On any working day Grameen collects an average of $1.5 million in weekly installments. Of the borrowers, 94% are women and over 98% of the loans are paid back, a recovery rate higher than any other banking system. Grameen methods are applied in projects in 58 countries, including the US, Canada, France, The Netherlands and Norway.

Kanayo F. Nwanze was named the fifth President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), on April 1, 2009.  He was elected President by delegates from IFAD’s 165 member states.  Nwanze served as IFAD’s Vice-President for two years before his recent promotion. During that time, he championed and led the implementation of key processes that have improved the quality of IFAD’s operations in developing countries.

A Nigerian national, Nwanze has a strong record as an advocate and leader of change and a keen understanding of the complexity of development issues.  His 30 years of job experience spans three continents.  His work has focused on poverty reduction through agriculture, rural development, and research.

Previously, Mr. Nwanze served ten years as Director-General of the Africa Rice Center (WARDA).  Today, WZARD is a leading International Agricultural Research Center, with a strong record of scientific achievements.  Nwaze was instrumental in introducing and promoting New Rice for Africa (NERICA), a high-yield, drought- and pest-resistant rice variety developed specifically for the African landscape. By increasing the Centre’s human, capital and financial resources, he transformed WARDA from an association covering only countries in West Africa to a continent-wide organization with an international reputation for excellence.  Mr. Nwanze also held senior positions at a number of research centres affiliated with the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), where he promoted public- and private-sector partnerships.

He is a member of several scientific Associations and Board member of many Africa-based Institutions.  He has been published in over 50 refereed journals, 40 peer-reviewed conference papers, and several books.

Dr. John Hatch is the founder of FINCA and the creator of Village Banking—a unique and influential method for delivering small loans, savings, and other financial services to the poor worldwide.

During his early career, Hatch served with the Peace Corps in Colombia, and as a regional director in Peru. As a graduate student, he won a Fulbright grant to conduct research in Peru, where he spent two crop cycles as a hired laborer working for subsistence farmers and documenting their agricultural practices.
In his work with the rural poor, Hatch found that most credit programs were administered by outside experts. This management style resulted in poor repayment rates and low morale among borrowers. Believing that the poor lacked neither ambition nor skill, but simply resources, in 1984, John created the Village Banking method. This method allowed the poor to obtain loans without collateral—their main obstacle to accessing credit—at interest rates they could afford. It brought neighbors together in groups, giving them the collective power to disburse, invest, and collect loan capital as they saw fit. The results among FINCA’s earliest clients were improved earnings and family nutrition, high repayment rates, and increased empowerment.
When Hatch began lending to women, he saw the tremendous potential of Village Banking as an anti-poverty tool: “Our focus on women was the result of a growing conviction that the fastest way to affect the welfare of children was through aid to their mothers,” said Hatch.

Over 22 years with FINCA, Hatch served as president, and as chief of party for programs in El Salvador and Guatemala; he retired as FINCA’s director of research in 2006. Today, the organization he founded reaches half a million families in 21 countries with small loans, insurance, savings programs, and other services. Hatch continues as a FINCA board member, advisor, speaker, lecturer, and fundraiser. He is continuing his research on the impact of Village Banking and is active in FINCA’s annual student symposium and research awards competition.

Throughout his career, Hatch supported efforts to promote microcredit worldwide. Since founding FINCA in 1984, he has shared his Village Banking methodology with numerous nongovernmental organizations. As a result, today there are hundreds of Village Banking programs worldwide. Hatch is also co-founder of the Global Microcredit Summit.

Chief Bisi is a pioneer in the economic empowerment of women, a gifted advocate for their full participation in policy and decision making, and a long-time leader in the fight to free her country from poverty, hunger, malnutrition, environmental degradation and injustice. For nearly two decades she has been promoting the active involvement of Africans in development issues that affect them.

A hands-on activist, Chief Bisi’s strength is derived from a firm foundation in the villages of Africa, and the committed partnership of her late husband, Peter Adeleke Ogunleye. She began helping women organize themselves by donating one month’s salary to a group of rural women to use as seed money to start their own business. The repaid loan was reinvested in other groups until, in 1982, Chief Bisi founded the Country Women Association of Nigeria (COWAN) with six cooperatives of 150 members.

Today COWAN has over 1,390 groups and 31,000 active members across eight states of Nigeria. It is known for its women-designed programs in credit, agriculture and small business development. In 1993 COWAN incorporated into its program the Centre for Development and Self-Help Activities (CEDSHA), created by Peter Ogunleye in support of youth and rural women. In 1994, in partnership with the international organization CEDPA (Center for Development and Population Activities), COWAN began an integrated health and family planning project designed to reach 3.5 million women in Ondo State.

Through COWAN, Chief Bisi established NARWA: the Network of African Rural Women Associations. An articulate spokesperson in the international community, she also currently serves as co-chair of the Women’s Environment and Development Organization, and is one of eight women on the 20-member United Nations Earth Council.

Chief Bisi’s inspired leadership grows out of her tenacity and vision, long before it was fashionable, that rural women possess the desire, capability and commitment to work to improve their own lives and their communities.

José Manuel Zelaya Rosales, also known as Mel Zelaya, is the Former President of Honduras from January 27, 2006 until June 28, 2009. On November 27, 2005, as the Liberal Party of Honduras (PLH) candidate he beat the National Party of Honduras (PNH’s) Porfirio Pepe Lobo in the presidential election, replacing Ricardo Maduro as President of Honduras on January 27, 2006 as the PLH’s 5th President in the national stadium in Tegucigalpa in front of 250 dignitaries, including leaders from other countries.

As an agriculturalist and businessman, prior to his presidency he served as the Director of the Honduran National Business Council (COHEP) and president of National Association of Timber Companies and Workers (ANETRAMA). Affiliated with the Liberal Party of Honduras (PLH) since 1970, Zelaya became an active member 10 years later. He joined the PLH in 1970 and became active a decade later.
He was a deputy in the National Congress 3 consecutive times between 1985 and 1998. He held many positions within the PLH and was Minister for Investment in charge of the Honduran Social Investment Fund (FHIS) in a previous PLH government. During the election campaign Zelaya promised to double police numbers from 9,000 to 18,000. He also promised to initiate a program of re-education amongst the Mara Salvatrucha gangs. In this question his approach was very different from that of his main rival Pepe Lobo, who advocated the death penalty for these groups of delinquents, leading the Honduran media to describe the country as having chosen reconciliation over confrontation. As president, Zelaya has increased funding for small and medium businesses, created a program for improving rural food production, lowered fuel prices and funded reforestation projects.

Juan Somavia was elected to serve as the ninth Director-General of the ILO by the Governing Body on 23 March 1998. His five-year term of office began on 4 March 1999, when he became the first representative from the Southern hemisphere to head the Organization. In March 2003, Mr. Somavia was re-elected for a second five-year term, and for a third term on 18 November 2008.

An attorney by profession, Mr. Somavia has had a long and distinguished career in civil and international affairs. His wide experience in all areas of public life - as a diplomat and academic - and his involvement in social development, business and civil organizations have all helped shape his vision of the need to secure decent work for women and men throughout the world.

At his initiative, the ILO created in 2002 the World Commission on the Social Dimension of Globalization. Composed of Heads of State, employers’ and workers’ representatives, policy-makers and academics and social actors from all walks of life, it was the first official body to take a systematic look at the social impact of globalization. Its operative recommendations include a call for Decent Work as a means of achieving a fair globalization that creates opportunities for all.

In June 2008, the International Labour Conference adopted the Declaration on Social Justice for a Fair Globalization. It recasts the ILO’s mission to meet the challenges of globalization in the twenty-first century through the Decent Work Agenda.

Mr. Somavia has always shown a strong interest in development cooperation and economic and social affairs. During the late 1960s, while working in GATT, he promoted the participation of developing countries in the Kennedy Round. From 1970 to 1973, Mr. Somavia served as Member and Chairman of the Board of the Andean Development Corporation in Caracas and worked intensively in favour of regional integration. He was also a Member of the Executive Committee of the International Foundation for Development Alternatives in Nyon, Switzerland from 1977 to 1995 and has been on the Advisory Committee of Development Dialogue (published by the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation) for more than 25 years.

Mr. Somavia’s multifaceted career has been driven by a strong concern for social justice, peace, and human rights. He also participated actively in the restoration of democracy in Chile. Not only was he President of the International Commission of the Democratic Coalition in Chile but also founder and Secretary-General of the South American Peace Commission (1986-90). His pursuit of these ideals has earned him several citations and awards, among them the Leonides Proaño Peace Prize from the Latin American Human Rights Association, the International Golden Dove of Peace awarded in July 2005 by the Italian NGO Archivio Disarmo, and most recently the Silver Rose Award from SOLIDAR for his vision of decent work and for defending the rights and freedoms of workers.

Born in 1963 in Valladolid, and mother of two children. Studied Law at the University of Valladolid, where she specialised in European Community Law. After passing a civil service exam, she became a Legal Adviser of the Local Administration, and has taught at the University School of Labour Relations.

Committed from a very young age to social policy issues, the environment and women’s rights, she has worked as a lawyer and legal adviser at the Shelter for Abused Women of the Valladolid City Council, and has been the Director of the City Council’s Women’s Centre.

Elected Member of the European Parliament (1999 – 2004), she has been Vice-Chair of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development and a member of the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality, among others.

Elected Member of the Spanish Parliament for Valladolid in 2004, she was Spokeswoman for the Socialist Group in the Joint Committee for the European Union. Re-elected at the General Elections in 2008, she has been, among other positions, Spokeswoman for the Socialist Parliamentary Group at the Parliament’s Committee on the Environment, Agriculture and Fisheries, and at the Joint Committee for the European Union.
During this period, she played an active role in drafting bills and in debating and passing environmental laws that are important for the general interest: the Act on the Right to Information, Participation and Environmental Justice; the Environmental Liability Act; the Forests Act; the Natural Heritage and Biodiversity Act; the National Parks Act; and the Act on the Sustainable Development of the Rural Environment. All this reflects a Spanish national policy for progress in rural areas.
At the elections to Valladolid City Council in 2007, she was elected Chair of and Spokeswoman for the Socialist Municipal Group.

She has held different positions in the local, regional and federal bodies of the Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE), of which she has been a member from the age of eighteen. In 2008 she was elected Secretary for the Environment and Rural Development of the PSOE Federal Executive Committee.

In July 2008, she was appointed, by the President of the Government, Secretary of State for International Cooperation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, and President of the AECID, positions which she currently holds. AECID will manage, in 2011, a total budget of 1.13 billion Euros. AECID’s human resources comprise 1,303 workers, half of them working abroad.

Since her appointment, she has visited more than 40 of the world’s most underprivileged countries in which Spanish Cooperation is active. Her presence has been especially significant in Latin America and Africa, and in countries afflicted by wars or natural disasters—from Gaza to Haiti, from Nicaragua to Mali, Congo or Sudan. Throughout these years, she has had an unflagging presence and participation in international agencies and conferences.