On November 9, Berlin celebrated the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Wall in impressive style. A 15km long light installation brought back to life the structure that had caused so much sorrow. A thousand illuminated balloons marked the course of the Berlin Wall – and eventually broke free of their ties. Germany's best friend, Mikhail Gorbachev, released the first balloon to float towards the skies over Berlin. The second balloon was set free by a man who was introduced the day after the celebrations at the Brandenburg Gate by Peter Spiegel, Head of the Genisis Institute for Social Innovation, as a person "who, like Gorbachev, is capable of tearing down walls inside people's heads." With these words Spiegel was welcoming Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus to the Allianz Forum.
Yunus: Tipping point in the fight against poverty
Together with Genisis and the Senate of Economic Affairs Allianz hosted the presentation of a new study on the effect of microcredits at the Forum at Pariser Platz. In his speech, Spiegel spoke of a barrier in the fight against poverty that Yunus had torn down. According to Franz Josef Radermacher, the head of the study and prominent representative of the Global Marshall Plan Initiative, we sometimes wonder whether an individual can still make a difference. "Yunus is one of those tipping points," said Radermacher. The Bangladeshi economist pioneered the concept of microcredit, a concept that earned him the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006. In the recent past, the concept has been abused as a profit-making scheme, leading to increasing criticism. The study, entitled "Microcredit - Addressing an Ongoing Debate", defends Yunus' original concept, in which poverty was not something to be capitalized on, but rather saw those in poverty as part of the solution.
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Host Wolfgang Ischinger emphasized the importance of distinguishing between microfinance providers in his opening speech. Allianz' microinsurance program currently has 35 million participants. Along with providing access to financial resources comes great responsibility, according to Ischinger, who is Allianz Global Head of Government Relations. "The most important aspect of this program is to have a clear understanding of the customer base, so that you can offer effective protection against risk and construct a long-term equitable balance between customers and providers." Ischinger then pointed to the Allianz 'Microinsurance Life Stories' exhibition, in which eight international journalists demonstrate how successfully the idea of microfinance has been implemented in reality.