Youth: Our focus is on girls and young women
Youth: Our focus is on girls and young women
Overview
Africa is experiencing an unprecedented youth wave. Our focus in youth is on young girls over the next five years so that no one is left behind in the development of the next generation.
Gender equality describes a world in which women and girls have equal access to resources and opportunities and where their participation, contributions, and decisions are valued and rewarded as much as those of men.
For this reason Genesis looks at all its projects through a gender lens so we can find the opportunities for gender equality and address the barriers that keep women and girls from being fully active in their homes, economies and societies. We can’t achieve progress if half the world’s population is left behind and their potential and talent are left untapped.
Projects
Looking for ways to improve AGYW programming in East and Southern Africa
Genesis has been contracted by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to synthesise and contextualise evidence to guide countries in managing and implementing comprehensive HIV prevention responses for adolescent girls and young women (AGYW).
Assessing impact of family planning programme for Kenyan girls
Genesis was contracted to conduct a rapid impact assessment of the Choice for Change (C4C) family planning programme in Kenya targeting adolescent girls. Choice for Change is a CIFF-funded initiative, though implemented through Marie Stopes Kenya (MSK), IPAS and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).
Our behavioural solutions team lifts school attendance by 14%
Genesis Analytics partnered with the Fun Learning for Youth (FLY) programme in Alexandra to help them improve attendance and attainment rates. The interventions resulted in a 14% increase in student attendance across all grades over the five-week period.
Improving the mentorship of AGYW in HIV prevention programmes
Genesis was contracted by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to assist in providing support to the assessment of PEPFAR’s DREAMS and the Global Fund’s mentoring component of their adolescent girls and young women’s HIV prevention programmes.
Related Focus Areas
Agriculture and agribusiness
Africa’s agricultural sector is critical to sustainable economic development. It supports economic opportunities in rural communities, the alleviation of poverty and plays an essential role in food security. Genesis works across the public-private interface for governments, donors, philanthropic and private sector clients.
Unlocking the sector’s potential requires a combination of political will, enabling regulatory frameworks, improved access to finance, skills investment and climate change adaptation. An understanding of these interlocking factors underpins our approach to programme design and implementation.
Behavioural solutions
Genesis recognises that certain problems in commerce and development demand an expert understanding of human behaviour. Moreover, the quality of traditional solutions can often be dramatically improved by incorporating behavioural expertise. Behavioural Solutions at Genesis combines expertise in economics, psychology, anthropology and sociology to unlock value.
Financial Services Strategy
Our Financial Services team has completed more than 1000 projects across sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East since 2001. We work with leading financial institutions to address their challenges, unlock value for their stakeholders and shape the future of the industry.
Our team understands the evolving technology and market structures, economics and regulatory trends across all segments of the financial services sector. Our distinct approach is characterised by deep specialisation and rigorous analysis based on a strong economics foundation.
Financial inclusion
Financial inclusion remains an acute challenge across Africa, with many people in the sub-Saharan region lacking access to basic financial products and services, such as credit, savings and insurance products. The effects of financial exclusion fall disproportionately on particularly women, low-income groups, rural inhabitants and small businesses. These groups have traditionally been underserved by traditional financial services. Genesis has built deep expertise in driving financial inclusion across these groups in Africa.
Health
We work with our clients to develop solutions aimed at improving the health of populations throughout Sub-Saharan Africa.
Our region faces the challenges of the quadruple burden of disease, which includes both communicable and non-communicable diseases, as well as violence and injury.
Coupled with this are relatively weak health systems, heavy reliance on donor funding and inequitable public and private sectors. Within this context, we provide experts with decades of experience in the design, implementation, costing and evaluation of health programmes, and strengthening of sustainable health systems.
Human Development
We work for a world where everyone can develop to their full potential. We are focused on expanding meaningful rights and opportunities for people who are marginalised. Part of a global African firm, we are particularly committed to children, women and young people in Africa and the Middle East.
We work in key human development areas: health, nutrition, and WaSH (water, sanitation and hygiene); youth, education and early childhood development; and social protection and social care. Rapid changes in demography, climate and technology are generating massive challenges and tremendous opportunities for human development. At the same time, Covid-19 has caused a severe shock to human development from which people and systems need to recover.
We help governments, their global partners, and private and non-state clients to improve the delivery of key human development services while navigating these changes. To do so, we provide services in diagnostics; regulation, governance and oversight; strategy, planning and implementation; financing and budgeting; service delivery; and monitoring and evaluation.
Monitoring, evaluation and learning
We work to maximise the social and economic impact of development efforts. As a trusted provider of monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL) services we combine our deeply rooted understanding of the African context with our extensive experience in qualitative and quantitative monitoring and evaluation (M&E) methods to assess progress, measure value creation, and facilitate internal and external learning.
Education
Improving outcomes for infants, children and young people
Half the population in Africa is below the age of 20. We are committed to helping these young people, and their peers in the Middle East, develop to their full potential and make a positive contribution to their communities and societies. We work to improve education, care and support from the critical first 1,000 days of life, through K-12 education, up to young adults’ entry into the world of work.
We are particularly focused on expanding opportunities for children and young people who lack choice and opportunity. We work with governments, their partners in development, and private and non-state actors to improve the reach and quality of education, care, and support services. We help clients to take opportunities and deal with challenges presented by changes in demography, climate, technology and the shock of COVID-19.