micro-financing

Bangladeshi economist Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank he created won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for leveraging small loans into major social change for impoverished families.

Loans as low as $9 have helped beggars start small businesses and poor women buy cellular phones and basket-weaving materials.

"Lasting peace cannot be achieved unless large population groups find ways in which to break out of poverty," the Norwegian Nobel Committee said in its citation in Oslo. "Micro-credit is one such means."