COP27, the “African COP” was held in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, from 6 to 18 November. The conference held a mirror to the world on progress against climate change. For Africa, the results were bittersweet.

While many people are aware of the recently completed COP27, another important global conference will take place in Montreal from 7 to 19 December 2022. This is the 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties on the UN Convention on Biological Diversity or COP15 where nations are expected to commit to targets on biodiversity for the next decade that will reverse biodiversity loss and secure a nature-positive world by 2030.

We really enjoyed meeting you at the recent careers fair. Genesis obviously caught your eye so we’d like to let you know a little more about us. We’re sure you don’t want to read reams of text, so instead we’d like to point you to some recent Genesis News.

The Conference of Parties (COP27), which runs from 6 - 18 November 2022 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, presents a fresh opportunity for African countries to come together and demand the support and finance needed to prevent temperature rise, to adapt to climatic changes, and to make a just transition to a low-carbon economy.

In participatory monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL) a wide range of stakeholders are engaged and consulted throughout the process to help to ensure that a programme is relevant and more likely to yield impact. Under participatory MEL, these groups are consulted as experts about their own lived experience and these insights are incorporated into the programme and MEL design process.

The Gates Foundation and USAID have partnered with Genesis Analytics to determine the impact of AI and automation processes on agri-food systems in low and middle income countries. We want to identify use cases across various regions and agri-food value chains which make use of these technologies. The RFI contains a brief overview of the assignment and a short questionnaire. Please download this RFI to assist Genesis in gaining insights on use cases and examples of the applications of AI and automation in agri-food systems.

In a significant shift for African banking, the Ethiopian government has approved a far-reaching policy that will soon open the country’s banking sector to foreign competition. The long-awaited decision taken by the Ethiopian Council of Ministers on 3 September is more extensive than anticipated. Foreign banks will be able to enter the market as wholly-owned subsidiaries, branches or in a joint venture with a local bank.

As part of Genesis’ corporate social investment arm, Genesis in Society, the Evaluation for Development team engaged Molo Mhlaba to conduct a programmatic assessment of the school, update the school’s theory of change and establish an impact framework to help Molo Mhlaba build an investment case for its future donors.

Predicting the future involves a lot of educated guessing. When it comes to investing in Africa, most of the guessing is based on a common set of indicators that are often used to characterise the health and stability of an economy. These include Gross Domestic Product, a country’s predicted growth, its population size, and measures related to the business environment and governance.

Gender Lens Investing (GLI) is an approach to investing that has an explicit intention of promoting the economic and social empowerment of women while also achieving financial returns. There has been an increase in GLI based on a greater body of evidence demonstrating that when women are economically empowered, they re-invest in their families and communities, producing a multiplier effect that contributes towards inclusive economic growth.

Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL), a type of short-term financing that allows consumers to split purchases into equal, often interest-free payments, is quickly gaining prominence among consumers. BNPL providers are disrupting traditional lending business models such as credit cards by leveraging innovative technology and offering fast and seamless finance to consumers at the point of sale.

Closing the huge MSME credit gap in Africa has been the focus of many development and private sector initiatives in recent years. Despite these efforts, MSMEs continue to face unique challenges compared with their larger counterparts.