ASSOCIATED PRESS, 11/2/2006, as reported in The Buffalo News 

TORONTO - Three weeks after a Bangladeshi economist won the Nobel Peace Prize for revolutionizing banking for the poor, his followers said Wednesday they're determined to help 175 million people living on less than $1 a day get small loans by the end of 2015. Organizers of the Microcredit Summit Campaign had intended to reach an initial goal of 100 million people by last December, but fell short by about 18 million.

Still, 82 million people have received the loans since the campaign was launched in 1997. And that credit - to purchase basics such as a cow for milk or a mobile phone to sell calls - has improved the lives of 410 million family members, said Campaign director Sam Daley-Harris.

An estimated 1 billion of the planet's 6 billion people live on less than a dollar a day. Another 3 billion are believed to subsist on $2 a day. "These micro-loans are giving hope to hundreds of millions of people around the world," Daley-Harris said.

The microcredit scheme was the brainchild of Dr. Muhammad Yunus, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on Oct. 13. He will address the opening of the Microcredit Summit Campaign conference in Halifax, Nova Scotia, on Nov. 12, when 2,000 delegates from more than 100 countries review their efforts and launch the next round of goals.

A report from the Campaign released Wednesday found some 3,100 institutions worldwide giving microcredit loans, with 84 percent of the credit going to women.