Maria Nowak, economist and specialist in microcredit, was born in Poland in 1935. In 1943, the family fled from Poland, which was occupied by the Nazi army. Many of her relatives were shot or deported. She emigrated to France in 1946. After obtaining degrees from the Institut d’Études Politiques in Paris (1956) and the London School of Economics (1959), she undertook a study trip to Guinea, defending a thesis on the rural economy. She joined the Central Fund for Economic Cooperation, specialising in African affairs. In 1985, Maria Nowak met an economist from Bangladesh, Professor Yunus, founder of Grameen Bank and Nobel Peace Prize winner (2006). She decided to import this model into France “to give an opportunity to those who are excluded”. In 1989, with the moral support of Muhammad Yunus, she founded the Association for the Right to Economic Initiative (ADIE), of which she became president.
In 1991, she was assigned to the World Bank to participate in the development of microcredit programmes in Central Europe. She is also co-founder of the Microfinance Centre for Central and Eastern Europe. Between 2000 and 2002, she was an adviser to the French Socialist Minister of Economy, Finance and Industry, Laurent Fabius.
She is a Knight of the Ordre du Mérite (1994) and of the Légion d’honneur (1998).
She has published various books, including: La Banquière de l’espoir. Celle qui prête aux exclus. (1994), La Place des invisibles, (with Anne Hirsch) (2004), On ne prête (pas) qu’aux riches. La révolution du microcrédit (2005), and Le microcrédit ou le pari de l’homme (2009).
LiberPress Catalonia Award 2010
Maria Nowak received the LiberPress Catalonia Award because, using intelligence and imagination in the service of the poor and the excluded, and going beyond capitalist economic and moral crises, she has designed and created tools for the individual and collective development of the marginalised, defending a rational economy away from the traditional power and influence of banks, working for equal opportunity, for the democratisation of resources and, in short, for a more just and humanitarian economy and a better world.