The lack of microcredit laws in many African countries is denying millions of the continent's poor access to loans, Nobel Prize winner Mohammad Yunus says.

Mr Yunus is attending an annual microcredit summit in Kenya, where Africa's microfinance institutions hope to emulate the success and growth of the industry in Asia, home to more than 80 percent of the world's 150 million microfinance beneficiaries.

Most donor aid in Africa now flows through governments, which encourages bureaucracy, corruption and inefficiency, Mr Yunus warned. Some microfinance institutions are run by NGOs.

Nicknamed the "banker to the poor," Mr Yunus started his movement 30 years ago with a 30 euro loan to women in Bangladesh. It has since mushroomed and delivered millions of tiny loans to poor people who do not have access to mainstream banking.

Mr Yunus, who won a Nobel Prize in 2006 for championing microcredit, is now pioneering an idea he calls "social business" as a way to fight poverty around the world--business not for profit but aimed at solving social problems.