In 2020, a ‘crisis year’ for tourism in South Africa, travel on Airbnb contributed more than R8 billion to the economy supporting around 22,000 jobs according to a new report from independent consultancy Genesis Analytics that was commissioned by Airbnb and released today.

The report highlights how the Airbnb platform is contributing to growth of the tourist economy, and that this growth is increasingly inclusive in nature. The Airbnb platform is lowering barriers to entry and welcoming new Hosts onto the platform by empowering groups typically excluded from the benefits of tourism, like those living in rural and township communities. Download the infographic here

An innovative new programme shows the power of South-to-South learning — and how facilitated self-assessment can unlock new data and insights to help countries reduce HIV infections. Download the article or read more the network's site.

The creatives sector remains an important facet of the Kenyan economy, providing long-term employment to creatives with an immense potential for export earnings and extensive growth. Despite this, the sector has faced an apparent challenge in accessing finance, compounded by other adverse market factors. Watch the video here 

The Equality Fund engaged Genesis to explore current forward thinking and innovative practices in gender-responsive and feminist Monitoring, Evaluation, Research and Learning. The overview paper consolidated the practical examples and emergent lessons gathered through a series of approximately 30 discussions with practitioners globally.

When national HIV programmes know their gaps, they do better. A new and innovative approach to finding those gaps is changing programmes for the better in East and Southern Africa — and leading to more strategic uses of donor funding and technical assistance.

The #WISH2ACTION project focuses on increasing access to contraception among the most marginalized women, whose needs for family planning are largely unmet. The consortium running the project is led by the International Planned Parenthood Federation.

We conducted client exit interviews in 17 countries as part of the Women's Integrated Sexual Health (WISH) programme. Together with IPPF, we developed the training manual to train enumerators on how to conduct clients exit interviews. The quality of this data is central to the programme making decisions that will improve people’s lives. 

Genesis was contracted by Fondation Botnar to carry out a mid-term strategic assessment of the support provided towards the development of the entrepreneurial and innovation ecosystem in Tanzania. As part of this assignment, Genesis conducted a literature review reflecting on the state of Innovation in Tanzania.

Despite the recent growth in the innovation space in the country, continued efforts to deepen and broaden the ecosystem is required highlighting the timeliness and need for initiatives, like the Ifakara Innovation Hub, and the network of partners, to encourage local innovation now and into the future.

The National Orientation Agency in Nigeria has released a report detailing the agency's activities and response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Genesis worked with the agency to provide daily nudges to remind everyone on what behaviours we need to adopt to prevent infection and further spread of the virus. The nudges were disseminated every morning across its social media pages and to other healthcare stakeholders for reposting across their networks.

The Facebook Company contracted Genesis to produce an independent report exploring the impact of the digital economy and social media on small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) in eight African countries (South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, Mauritius, Senegal, Cote d’Ivoire and the DRC).

The study finds evidence that social media platforms are powerful catalysts in the formation and growth of new SMBs, and shows that SMBs that use digital tools such as the Facebook apps (Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook Messenger), are the vehicles for realising Africa’s three latent opportunities:

1. Leveraging Africa’s competitive advantage of an extremely young population;

2. Bringing more women into formal economic activity; and

3. Diversifying and expanding intra-African trade.

* For all media enquires please contact Olivia Nloga 

Download:

• Download the English report here
• Download the infographic here
• Download the methodology report here

The study finds evidence that social media platforms are powerful catalysts in the formation and growth of new SMBs, and shows that SMBs that use digital tools such as the Facebook apps (Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook Messenger), are the vehicles for realising Africa’s three latent opportunities:

1. Leveraging Africa’s competitive advantage of an extremely young population;
   
2. Bringing more women into formal economic activity; and
   
3. Diversifying and expanding intra-African trade.
   
   

* For all media enquires please contact Olivia Nloga 

Download:

• Download the French report here
• Download the infographic here
• Download the methodology report here

Genesis, the MEL partner of the ASISA Foundation, assessed the extent to which financial education, in particular the financial education provided by their WageWise programme, builds resilience during economic downturns. The survey found that individuals who had received some form of financial education prior to the pandemic, fared much better compared to their counterparts. In particular, they had existing savings, less debt, and they were able to continue to provide for their families, even with reduced incomes due to the pandemic.

Dr Marcela Tarazona, the partner in our new Climate Finance practice, co-authored the recently published WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT PREPARING FINANCIALLY FOR DISASTERS?. The Centre for Disaster Protection report reviews the evidence on the welfare impacts of proactive approaches to setting up finance for disaster response