Muhammad Yunus is the creator of the idea of microcredit that offered millions of families a way out of poverty. Now, he fights for a universal vaccine to prevent the coronavirus. Interview with TSF.
The 2006 Nobel Peace Prize winner, Muhammad Yunus, is leading a worldwide campaign to make the vaccine for covid-19, when it finally arrives, be it universal, instead of being the exclusive or property of the richest countries. The “banker of the poor” appeal has already been signed by personalities such as Desmond Tutu, Mikhail Gorbachev, Malala Yousafzai, Bono, Richard Branson, Lech Walesa, Lula, George Clooney, Sharon Stone, Mary Robinson, Anne Hidalgo, Andrea Bocelli, Rigoberta Menchu , Shirin Eibadi, Romano Prodi, Gordon Brown, Jeffrey Sachs, José Ramos Horta, among many others. The interview with the program O Estado do Sítio, at TSF on this Mandela Day, in which the Bangladeshi economist participates in a conference organized by the Portuguese from the Ubuntu Academy of Leaders.
Professor Yunus, in a world full of close ties between large companies and governments, do you think that the world community can really commit to the idea of COVID-19 vaccines free from commercial interests?
We are trying. This is the appeal that we launched, now signed by 140 people and about 30 of them are Nobel laureates. So this is a good way to do it, in the sense that we consider the vaccine as a global common good, but there are good reasons why it should be done. I think, first of all, if there is a commercial property about the vaccine, the whole vaccine will be administered in a completely different way, all focused on maximizing profit and delivered to the best offer. Therefore, most of the world’s population will already be losing and the process has not yet started. The United States is, though aggressively, only buying future vaccines.
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