AI is reshaping our digital interactions, offering personalised learning tailored to the unique needs of students, enhancing teacher pedagogy, streamlining administrative tasks, and enhancing learning tools. Yet, AI raises significant privacy and equity concerns. We delve deeper.

Genesis Analytics brought together 100 people from passionate education organisations, educators, researchers and innovators for the Numeracy Research and Development (NRD) Challenge second information session. Together, we explored how to tackle one of education's toughest challenges: foundational numeracy for underserved learners in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.

This session was not only a deep dive into the state of math education, where UNESCO Institute for Statistics data shows that approximately 80% of children struggle to meet proficiency by Grade 3, but also a call to action for bold, scalable solutions. Read more here

The Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) practice at Genesis Analytics kicked off 2024 with a bang and maintained that momentum for much of the year. Before the final bell rings, here are a few things that 2024 will leave behind in our memories.

I haven’t been the most consistent LinkedIn poster this year, so I’m wrapping it all up in one! 2024 was a year of incredible growth for me professionally, with new projects, challenges, and exciting travels.

Here’s a quick recap of the key projects I worked on in each location.

In Jenny Erpenbeck’s classic novel Visitation, a century of tumultuous history, including two world wars, is told through the story of a single house. The most compelling character in the book is a seemingly marginal one: a gardener who keeps toiling away, mulching the soil, keeping everything in order according to the seasons, working intently and quietly amidst mayhem and bloodshed.

This year at Genesis we’ve taken our cue from Erpenbeck’s gardener. Amidst devastating wars on three continents, coups in West Africa, and epochal changes in politics and tech, we’ve put our heads down and worked.

2024 has been a period of profound change and progress in global health. Delivering healthcare is becoming increasingly complex and costly, yet domestic and development funding are declining. At the same time, we face unprecedented advances in the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of many diseases. It is in this context that the Genesis Analytics Health practice continues to work to improve health outcomes across Africa.

The November Bletchley Declaration on AI Safety is a landmark declaration that sees 28 countries from across the globe including Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and the EU, agreeing to the urgent need to better understand and collectively manage potential risks of AI. Countries endorsing the Declaration include Brazil, France, India, Ireland, Japan, Kenya, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Nigeria and the United Arab Emirates.

The African continent needs to create between 12 – 15 million jobs annually to absorb young people who are entering the labour market. Therefore, the profound transformation that the African entrepreneurship landscape has been undergoing is encouraging. Africa has one of the highest rates of entrepreneurship. Over 20% of working-age Africans started a new business and around 75% of young people plan to start one within five years. 

2024 has been a year of growth for the Shared Value and Impact practice. We welcomed a new partner, Lael Bethelem, to build our service line for Policy Implementation and Execution. We were also joined by Jon Beardsley, who will head up Digital Livelihoods, focusing on ecosystem facilitation in global business services in East Africa. Jon extends our team’s footprint to Kenya.

Will AI such as ChatGPT be an opportunity or a threat to the consulting industry? How should the The Competition Commission South Africa balance economic empowerment with the need to maintain a competitive market? How important is a good working knowledge of history in the consulting industry? How important is it to take ‘the long view’ in consulting when clients demand immediate solutions and partners demand immediate returns?

Genesis Analytics founder and chair Stephan Malherbe answers a wide range of questions from Stellenbosch University academic Johan Fourie. To read more of his interviews with leading South Africans, access Fourie’s blog Our Long Walk. 

Zambia has incredible biodiversity, but the economy is heavily reliant on natural resources. Genesis Analytics has worked with the United Nations Development Programme Biodiversity Finance Initiative team to make recommendations to Zambian financial decision makers about how to integrate biodiversity considerations into their prudential supervision.

Following the conclusion of the Cali Biodiversity COP16, Genesis partner Marcela Tarazona and consultant Belinda Kaimuri-Kyalo, MSc report on how we can mitigate these risks and promote climate-friendly investments that benefit both the economy and the environment by making informed policy and investment decisions.

Youth are the driving force behind a brighter future, and in the Evaluation for Development (E4D) team, we are committed to working with our clients and partners to empower young people by creating meaningful economic opportunities.