Nobel Laureate Professor Yunus has proposed creating social business pharmaceutical companies to bring vaccines and medicines to all people at affordable prices.
He came up with the proposal when he was invited to a parliamentary breakfast at the Bundestag (German Parliament) recently by Parliamentary Secretary of the Ministry of Education and Research, Mario Brandenburg.
He moderated the hour-long discussion during the breakfast. The breakfast was attended by 10 parliament members from diverse political parties.
Yunus was invited to speak on the current trend in rise in poverty, impact of pandemic on the low income people, impact of Ukrainian war, and the experiences of application of social business concept in addressing these issues.
Prof Yunus pleaded with the parliament members to support the campaign to make vaccine a common good by withdrawing intellectual property right, said the Yunus Centre in a media release on Sunday.
He highlighted the collapse of the global system in bringing vaccines to the people of low income countries.
Parliamentary Secretary Mario Brandenburg told the participants that he has already submitted a proposal in which he called for a greater governmental support for social business entrepreneurship. All MPs present acknowledged that entrepreneurially driven social business can go a long way in solving social problems.
Among the MPs present were Dr. Holger Becker (SPD), MP Frank Muller-Rosentritt (FDP), MP Sandra Bubendorfer-Licht (FDP), MP Volkmar Klein (CDU), MP Dr. Christiane Schenderlein (CDU), MP Alexander Radwan (CSU) and MP Canan Bayram (Bundnis 90/Die Grunen).
Professor Yunus is visiting Berlin to attend the tenth anniversary celebration of Yunus Social Business (YSB) a company created in Berlin ten years back to promote social businesses around the world. The company headed by Saskia Bruyesten operates in Brazil, India, Colombia, Uganda, Kenya and Rwanda help create social businesses in these countries. YSB has supported around 2070 social businesses in 5 countries with USD 18 million disbursed capital, creating employment of 1.3 million income earners and engaging atleast 17.8 million customers.
Tenth year celebration was held on June 2 attended by 150 people coming from all the countries where YSB operates, and supporters of YSB in Germany and other Europeans countries, corporate leaders, senior executives of YSBs in all countries where it operates, and media representatives. Yunus expressed his happiness that YSB which was initiated by two German young women fresh out of university in their late 20s with no funds, has reached so many people around the globe. YSB delegates shared their achievements and plans for the next decade.
Yunus left Berlin on June 3 for Trento, Italy to speak at the “Trento Festival of Economics”, a global economic conference on social entrepreneurship for sustainable economic development.
Source: United News of Bangladesh