Muhammad Yunus, a high-profile proponent of microcredit lending to the poor, has accepted India's highest honor - the Gandhi Peace Prize - on behalf of his Grameen Bank. Bangladesh-based Grameen, which may be the world's most successful microcredit lender, shared the prize, awarded for the "amelioration of human suffering," with former South African president Nelson Mandela.

Some 58 countries now have microcredit programs, which require no collateral, relying on peer pressure from other borrowers to ensure repayment. Bangladesh's microcredit program is considered the most advanced in the world.

A Fulbright scholar with a Ph.D. in economics from Vanderbilt, Yunus, 60, was involved in Bangladesh's pilot microcredit projects in the mid-1970s. These ultimately led to the 1983 launch of independent Grameen (Bangla for "village"). More than 1,100 Grameen branches serve about 39,000 villages, providing 2.4 million poor people, most of them women, with access to funds. The average loan is $160. There are many microcredit programs in Bangladesh, but only a few approach the size of Grameen's operations, and only one has more customers.

Yunus's adherents include former U.S. president Bill Clinton, who set up a similar program when he was governor of Arkansas, and Mexican president Vicente Fox. When Fox was governor of the state of Guanajuato, he started a microlending project that is now being extended throughout Mexico.

Despite the acclaim microcredits have received, it's still a struggle to convince donors to provide backing. "You need soft loans or grant money to get started, but once you have reached a certain cruising speed, then you can get more funds from commercial sources," Yunus says. He emphasizes that the Gandhi prize went to Grameen Bank, not Muhammad Yunus: "I only talk about the bank - this is my favorite subject. If I talked about space exploration, nobody would listen."