Staff Reporter :
Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Chief Adviser Professor Muhammad Yunus has urged the world to exchange “one-dimensional selfishness” for the human-centred principles of social business, setting out an ambitious vision of zero poverty, zero unemployment and zero net carbon emissions.
Delivering the keynote address at the opening of the 15th Social Business Day at the Samajik Convention Centre yesterday, Prof Yunus told more than 1,000 delegates from 38 countries that the prevailing global order is “gloomy, but not of our making”, and need not determine humanity’s future.
“We did not create this world of crises,” he said. “But we can refuse to accept it-and build a better one.”
Organised by the Yunus Centre and the Grameen family of enterprises, this year’s two-day gathering carries the theme “Social Business: The Most Effective Way to Ensure Healthcare for All”. Participants are examining how purpose-driven enterprises can address widening inequalities in health, education and climate resilience.
Prof Yunus argued that conventional, profit-maximising business structures are steering society towards “massive disaster”. The remedy, he said, is not wholesale destruction of existing systems but a gradual shift to enterprises designed around community needs and environmental responsibility.
“We can simply start walking in a different direction-practical, concrete steps that anyone can take,” he added.
In a speech delivered without notes, Beijing-born Yunus-dressed in his trademark panjabi-challenged young people to become “creators, not job-seekers”, and to reject the notion that financial return is the sole measure of success. Social businesses, he argued, provide a framework for innovation that places human dignity at its centre.
Speakers at the opening session included United Nations Resident Coordinator Gwyn Lewis, who described social business as “both timely and essential” in closing healthcare gaps, and former World Bank Vice-President Ismail Serageldin, who stressed the importance of bottom-up development.
Olympian Kady Kanouté Tounkara highlighted sport’s potential to empower women and youth, while IOC honorary president Thomas Bach praised Prof Yunus’s decades-long commitment to peacebuilding through unity.
Japanese entrepreneur Mitsuru Izumo recalled a promise made to Prof Yunus in Dhaka 27 years ago that led to a nationwide nutrition initiative-illustrating, he said, “the profound ripple effect of small beginnings”.
Although global in scope, the conference repeatedly turned to Bangladesh, which Prof Yunus described as a proven laboratory of social innovation. He credited Bangladeshi youth with having “refused to accept a broken system” and with helping propel the country “from darkness into light”.
He urged policymakers to view Bangladesh not as an economy in transition but as a potential model of “post-capitalist” progress where well-being, rather than GDP, is the primary metric.
The summit continues until 29 June and features five plenary sessions and eight breakout discussions covering healthcare equity, sustainable development and inclusive finance.
An Academia Dialogue, co-hosted by North South University, will explore ways to integrate social-business thinking into university curricula. A parallel Three Zero Club Convention is guiding young delegates in designing projects to tackle climate change, economic disparity and unemployment.
Concluding his address, Prof Yunus offered a reminder of collective agency rather than a detailed policy prescription.
“We are neither helpless nor powerless,” he said. “We are not condemned to live with the consequences of other people’s mistakes. We can build our own world-and make it beautiful.”
The conference continues today.
