Letter: No simple way out of poverty for Bangladeshi women

Professor Yunus is not just a visionary with an idea and the ability to put that idea into practice. He is also a truly inspiring speaker, because he speaks straight from the heart about things he believes in passionately. He has the insight to see through stereotyped thinking and simply ignore it.

His current target is even more ambitious than Alan Jolis suggests. It is to bring micro-credit to 100 million families by the year 2005. That would represent about half the world's absolute poor, and would really begin to break the hold of poverty.

To this end Results, an international grassroots lobbying organisation of which Yunus is a US board member, is convening a Micro-credit Summit in Washington next February. Results UK is currently engaged in building support among MPs and MEPs. The timing of the general election is clearly an awkward factor in this, but the opportunity represented by micro-credit is so great that we must ensure substantial representation by both government and opposition parties - whichever way round they may be.

Bill Linton

London N13