“What do you want to be when you grow up?” seems to have been relegated to the backseat and the prevailing narrative is to “get young people into employment, any employment as long as they are employed”. This approach disregards the dreams and aspirations of young people, pushing them into jobs that may not align with what gives them personal fulfilment.

Read Genesis’ highly anticipated economic impact report on Airbnb’s operations in South Africa. Led by our teams in Shared Value and Impact and the Centre of Digital Excellence, this independent report estimates Airbnb's significant contribution to the economy and describes the ongoing achievement of more inclusive tourism.

Now more than ever we are witnessing the power of digital solutions to enrich our work, and I for one am leaning into these exciting new times! As a fully remote worker, I rely heavily on digital tools to interact with my team daily. I have come to appreciate the value of digital tools and solutions, firstly, for making me a better monitoring and evaluation (M&E) practitioner, and secondly, for the value-add they bring to the Evaluation for Development (E4D) team at Genesis.

Scientists are increasingly confident that they can predict the global impact of the El Niño weather phenomenon – and for African countries the projections are not good.

Extended reality technology (XR) and the metaverse could reshape how we interact, learn, work and create. But what are the implications of this technology for Africa?

Most South Africans would agree that the most important challenge facing the country is the level of load shedding/power outages. When those same South Africans are asked why they have not implemented their own electricity solutions the answer is invariably cost.

Organisations and donor programmes are often caught up in achieving their goals and forget the invaluable benefits of pausing to reflect on what is or what is not working, and making use of the data from Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) activities to guide implementation. In other cases, foundations or donors have a portfolio of grantees and do not take the opportunity to deliberately reflect and synthesise learnings across their portfolio. This is where a Learning Partner can be beneficial.

Ethiopia is experiencing a transformative shift in its financial landscape as digital financial services (DFS) gain popularity. With non-financial institutions now able to provide services alongside banks, the country has witnessed significant changes. 

Lebanon’s Early Childhood Education (ECE) sector has seen multiple crises over the last few years. School closures from the COVID-19 pandemic, economic concession, and public service deadlock have resulted in a deep decline in the quality of education within the public system.

As we commemorate Disability Pride Month this July, Lauren Den Besten reflects back on her first interview at Genesis. "With wringing hands ensconced in my lap, I chose to vocalise the pride I take in being disabled and asked about the reasonable accommodations that are provided in what I hoped would be my future place of work," she writes.

How does a customer standing before a cashier decide what method to use to pay for goods – cash, credit/debit cards, digital wallets or even cryptocurrencies? A few considerations inform this decision: the transaction fees, safety or convenience. Rarely does the environmental impact of different payment methods come to mind.

How do you ensure that targets are suitable and relevant? Unfortunately, target setting has developed a bad reputation as people often overemphasise the target rather than the required intervention.  Our latest mailer expands on key considerations for developing targets that reflect project context and SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound) criteria, which we’ve put into practice with partners like TechnoServe and Seedstars.