More than 700 million Africans lack access to a bank or mobile money account and only 41% of Africans are financially included. A new report Cloud Banking in Africa: The Regulatory Opportunity, by Genesis Analytics and Orange Business Services, outlines how cloud computing in financial services can help financial services providers reach and serve the poor.

The impact of the COVID-19 crisis is dramatic in terms of immediate loss of human life and many families suffer profoundly. While the epidemic rages across the world, all efforts should now be focused on preventing the worst scenarios from coming true.

Epidemiologists are worriers. We like to think of ourselves as warriors, of course, but if you spend your professional time counting illness and deaths you worry a lot about diseases like COVID-19. Head of the Health practice Saul Johnson outline the six steps we need to take.

Any doubts as to the severity of the Covid-19 pandemic ended when South Africa went into a full-scale lockdown. Manager of Digital Economy team Mark Schoeman writes that none will feel it more than our country’s poor who do not have access to the digital coping strategies that are being put forward.

Genesis is working with the National Orientation Agency in Nigeria and the Ministry of Health in Kenya to provide daily nudges on how, through social media, to avoid COVID-19.

Genesis Analytics is pleased to announce that Sarah Magni has been promoted to partner in our Health practice. Sarah has worked at Genesis for four years. Prior to that she has held leadership positions in the health sector for over a decade.

Davos 2020 was a turning point for global big business. There were five takeaways that will be important for business going forward. They include stakeholder capitalism as the new orthodoxy to people wanting business to lead to understanding that climate change is a business risk. We unpack them them.

This was one of the key findings of the South Africa in the Digital Age (SADA) process. SADA is an urgent multi-stakeholder initiative to develop a forward-looking digital economy strategy. It is convened by Genesis Analytics in partnership with the Gordon Institute of Business Science and the Pathways for Prosperity Commission at Oxford University.

Cloud banking can provide a much-needed stepping stone to development and prosperity for people throughout Africa. However, both government and business need to acknowledge the opportunity, prepare for it and seize it.

We have grown our presence in West Africa and our offices in Nairobi and London. We are also looking to establish a presence in North America. We’ve been blessed with productive and enjoyable partnerships during the year. Most of all, we’ve been struck by the power of helping our clients seek out the great opportunities that exist amid the surface volatility of what has been a historic year.

Genesis analyst Ndodzo Mawela writes that digital platforms have the potential to create significant opportunities for small and emerging retail businesses in Africa. However, to harness their full potential, special attention needs to be paid to providing affordable and reliable ICT infrastructure.

The Shared Value and Impact practice at Genesis Analytics has been fortunate to work on some interesting and meaningful projects over the past year. We have helped to unlock value across a range of complex problems.

The Digital Roadmap puts developing countries in the driving seat of their own economic development. It offers an evidence-based guide to navigate the digital age to cultivate shared prosperity for all.

The Digital Economy Kit provides a framework for countries to get digitally ready. It is not about ICT sector strategy, instead it is about holistic growth strategies that harness digital technologies across the economy. It is built on work piloted in Ethiopia, Mongolia, and South Africa.

Will the provision of good quality and affordable rental housing opportunities in well-located areas of cities redress spatial inequalities? The Development team at Genesis used a case study approach to establish if SHRA's Social Housing Programme has delivered on its objectives, as well as identify the impact it has on household.

Women continue to face a number of key barriers which perpetuate the gender gap in financial inclusion in sub-Saharan Africa. In a chapter (Beyond Access: Gender-Transformative Financial Inclusion in Agriculture and Entrepreneurship), co-authored by Genesis, we recommend a new gender-transformative approach to financial inclusion that is explicitly directed toward creating gender-equal financial systems.

Director of our Financial Services Strategy practice, Richard Ketley, contributed a chapter on “Cloud Banking in Africa: The Regulatory Opportunity” in the first of Vodacom's Public Policy Series, called Future-proofing Mobile Financial Services. It was presented in Dar es Salaam in November 2019.

Genesis was tasked with analysing the data from the IFC's global SME banking survey, providing insights on the challenges and dynamics of SME finance and exploring the future of SME banking and the trends that will shape the industry. This is the report.