As an emerging evaluator who works on financial education (or financial literacy) programme evaluations, Bonga Khoza has often been left with a question mark about whether or not a programme has been effective

2023 has been a momentous year for Genesis. We celebrated our 25th birthday, now employ 280 staff and have people based in more than 25 countries. We also achieved the milestone of having worked in more than 100 countries, including the Middle East and Central Asia.

2023 has been a year of fours for the Shared Value and Impact practice. We hired four new team members, embraced hybrid working across four cities (Johannesburg, Cape Town, Nairobi and London) and built out our four service lines: corporate impact and strategy, public policy for corporates, the just energy transition* and government policy and advisory.

“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.