About Us
Hlaziya Solutions (Pty) Ltd is a data-led research and consulting company specialising in financial and socio-economic analysis.
We have extensive experience in analysing South African economic, social and political trends. Our team has been providing analysis of general elections since 2011 and we have completed a number of economic impact assessments at the national, provincial, and local level.
Our clients include companies in the JSE Top 25, government departments, non-profit organisations, and other private and public sector partners.
Our Vision
To tell the stories of our clients, South Africa and Africa to the world
Our Mission
To use data-led storytelling to inform, to demystify, and to excite
Our Vision
To tell the stories of our clients, South Africa and Africa to the world
Our Mission
To use data-led storytelling to demystify and excite
Meet The Team
Sky Swales
Founder & Director
Sky is an advocate and a member of the Johannesburg Bar. She has worked as a llegal researcher in technology law and specialises in Constitutional Law, technology law and internet law.
Paul Berkowitz
Founder & Director
Paul is a researcher and writer. His work appeared in many national publications including Business Day, Financial Mail, and the Mail & Guardian. He is a regular speaker on radio and television
Meet The Team
Sky Swales
Founder & Director
Sky is an advocate and a member of the Johannesburg Bar. She has worked as a llegal researcher in technology law and specialises in Constitutional Law, technology law and internet law.
Paul Berkowitz
Founder & Director
Paul is a researcher and write. His work appeared in many national publications including Business Day, Financial Mail, and the Mail & Guardian. He is a regular speaker on radio and television
What We Do
Data-led research and storytelling
Our ability to translate research into a compelling story is our superpower
Case Study
In our research into South Africa-Germany bilateral trade we found something fascinating: from 2014 onwards South Africa’s automotive sector exports to Germany took off line a rocket. The bar chart race below shows this export growth over time:
We love the bar chart race visualisation and how it shows changes over time. You can pause the chart and drag the time slider to a particular year for a snapshot view.
Political analysis and consulting
Mapping elections since 2011
Case Study
Our interest in location intelligence started back in 2011 with the local government election. We used our experience in analysing elections and party politics to work on political campaigns and publish our political analysis.
The interactive map below summarises our review of the Patriotic Alliance’s (PA) success in recent elections (the full review is on The South Africa Brief Substack here). The PA’s strong growth across the Western Cape in the 2024 provincial election is a threat to bigger parties:
This type of map, called a choropleth map, uses colour shading to show data, like a political party’s share of the vote in a ward. These maps can include other layers, such as voter demographics or service delivery data.
You can zoom into the map to find even the smallest wards in the Western Cape.
Data pipeline management and training
Unlock the power of your data to tell a better story
Case Study
We work with many stakeholders in basic education. Most of them create their own data every day in the schools where they work. We help them to build systems to use their data and we train them to use these systems.
One of the tools we developed for the education sector tracks matric results in the National Senior Certificate (NSC) system, which is written by over 95% of Grade 12 learners. We use official matric results from the Department of Basic Education to map results for any school in South Africa.
The map below shows the Mathematics results for the 2024 NSC exam for every school in the Gauteng province:
This tool can compare matric results nationally, provincially, by school district and even locally. It is really useful for measuring the success of an education intervention against the results of neighbouring schools. You can zoom into the map to focus on any area in Gauteng.