Here’s your Daily Brief for December 9th:

Women at the BoP: what does it mean when your money belongs to you? (via Perspective 2.0) – Ownership is a critical step toward empowerment at the bottom of the pyramid. Advances in technologies, in this case biometric ID cards, will be the future of solving this problem.

The ever-growing business case for CSR/sustainability (via Business Fights Poverty) – Ian Berry takes a look at a recent survey of 250 global business leaders on CSR/Sustainability initiatives. Of those surveyed, 68% are using CSR as a platform for growth and differentiation to create new revenue streams. And 54% believe their CSR activities are giving them an advantage of their top competitors. (Full Report Here)

Rallying the World against “Blood Oil” (via Africa Business Source) – I posted earlier on the topic of conflict minerals in the DRC (with Appfrica’s wonderful use of Ushahidi data to visualize the correlation between conflict and mining). Today, this post from Africa Business Source shares the problem of “Blood Oil” in Nigeria — the “use of proceeds from stolen crude oil in financing international terror groups and domestic insurgents in Nigeria.” What is amazing is the magnitude of stolen crude oil — ranging from 100,000 to 300,000 barrels per day! Outside of the criminal uses of stolen money, there is an enormous lost opportunity cost to the people of Nigeria.

Nigeria’s Brain Gain – It seems that the rising unemployment rates in the US and the UK are driving native Nigerians to take up job opportunities available in their home country. We talk so much about brain-drain in the developing world, it’s interesting to see that the current economic climate is driving quite the opposite effect: brain-gain! (HT: Annansi Chronicles)