Nobel Peace Prize to Yunus and his Grameen Bank

It's ironic. In the main microfinance practitioners mailing list I skim through the various email objects and I read: "Joy at hearing Prof Yunus gets the Nobel Peace Prize" and after a few lines: "Farmers suicide". I have been working in microfinance for 5 years now. I believe in its development power, but I still think that too much has been said and written about it. Most of the practitioners, and I include myself in this list, carefully avoided stressing the weaknesses of microfinance. And still, while someone is celebrating Yunus' success and glory, someone else is wondering what's going on in India, where farmers are burdened with the high interest rates of microfinance institutions and commit suicide because of that.

Let's please be careful when we celebrate. Let's not forget that it's about poor people's lives we are talking about.

I would not be where I am now if Yunus did not create the Grameen Bank, that's for sure. I started being interested in microfinance after I read his book, and it was love and belief at first sight.

But I am afraid about the misuse of this tool, the excessive celebration, the salaries of all the consultants that work for this industry. I am afraid that all this will keep the interest away from the real objective of microfinance: fighting, when possible, poverty.

The reason why I am saying all this, is that I see many people working in development around me. And still, the number of poor people is constantly increasing in the world.
Someone please tell me what's wrong here, otherwise I will not feel like celebrating the success of Yunus and the industry in which I am so deeply involved.