A Pakistani microfinance pioneer Dr. Amjad Saqib, has been nominated for Nobel Peace Prize for his organization Akhuwat’s humanitarian services toward poverty alleviation.
The Lahore-based philanthropist is among 343 candidates nominated from around the world for the 2022 prize. The nominations include 251 individuals and 92 organizations.
Dr. Saqib’s interest-free microfinance has been hailed as a tremendous success in Pakistan and many parts of the world. His organization Akhuwat means brotherhood, which encourages contributions to the bank and helps deserving people with different sizes of loans.
Saqib has been a recipient of the Ramon Magsaysay Award — named after a Filipino president killed in a plane crash — for his “first-of-its-kind” interest- and collateral-free microfinance program that has helped lift millions of families out of abject poverty.
Akhuwat has grown into Pakistan’s largest microfinance institution and has distributed $900 million among people with an almost 100 percent loan return rate.
He uses places of worship to hand out money to inspire trust and community engagement.
If awarded the Nobel for Peace, Amjad Saqib will be the second South Asian micro-lender to be recognized internationally after Muhammad Yunus of Bangladesh who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006.
Saqib says he is not aware of his nomination as he does not work to get recognition but serve the people.
“My services are beyond such awards and they are purely for the sake of Allah,” the Akhuwat Foundation Chairman told the English newspaper, Express Tribune.
“An official of a foreign country might have recommended my name for the award as people across the world are familiar with my services for humanity… but I am not aware of any such development,” he said when asked if he knew that a minister of Malta recommended his name for the prestigious award.
Dr. Saqib, a former bureaucrat, founded Akhuwat in 2003 and says his organization represents a viable Shariah-compliant microfinance model, Saqib has also volunteered to work in numerous civil society organizations devoted to promoting services like education, health, disability, banking, and finance.
He has spoken at the world’s most respectable higher education institutions including in the United States.
