Here’s your Daily Brief for September 18th through September 21st:

BoP Business Development and the Extractives Industry (via NexBillion.net) – This is a neat article by Tayo Akinyemi about about the compatibility between BOP business strategy and the extractives industry.

“However, we also recognized that an inherent contradiction existed in our work. BoP business development by definition-if you accept co-creation as a key tenet-should engage the community in the process from the outset. However, extractives projects can be scoped, planned, funded and largely executed before the community is involved in a meaningful way. That begs the question of whether BoP business development and the extractives industry are compatible.”

She raises some interesting points about BOP business and community-involved strategies.

Advice on Doing Business in Africa (via BusinessWeek) – Karen Klein answers questions about doing business in Africa as we lead up to the 7th Biennial U.S.-Africa Business Summit in Washington DC.

Froth at the bottom of the pyramid (via The Economist) – The Economist weighs in on the microfinance debate that made sparks last August.

Anecdotes and Analysis: The Microfinance “Bubble” (via NextBillion.net) – Saurabh Lall comments on The Economist’s article on “Froth at the Bottom of the Pyramid” by making the point that was expressed last week about “storytelling vs. investment metrics”. He writes:

The BoP space has so far relied largely on anecdotal evidence and case studies for analysis. It would be extremely wrong to say that case studies and qualitative research are not valuable tools in BoP evaluation, but it is important to understand their strengths and limitations.