Members of AfricaScope have been working with one another for more than 15 years. The origins of AfricaScope were in the market research, social science and GIS fields.

Bob Currin was one of the founder members of SAtoZ, which was regarded as being one of the most innovative and creative strategic research and marketing organisations in South Africa. SAtoZ over many years provided reliable business information including:

• the Consumerscope - an advertisers guide to the South Africa market
• the SA Future Market Digest
• the LSM Continuum and Mindset dataset
• SAtoZ - the decision-maker's encyclopaedia of the South African consumers
• the Seven Doors video - the inside story of the South African consumer market
• patterns and pathways
• the Eskom Omni Panel Survey and
  the South African Business Survey

At the same time Craig Schwabe as the director of the GIS Centre at the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) was pioneering the development of spatial databases for use in the public sector. One of the areas was the development of socio-economic databases, more specifically the capturing of census data into GIS.

In collaboration with SAtoZ these datasets were made available to the private sector. As the geoinformation industry developed new datasets, such as the Living Standard Measures (LSM), Mindset and Financial Summary Measures (FSM), were developed specifically for the private sector. Extensive market research and spatial analysis has been done in providing socio-economic and consumer profiles for private sector companies.

Over the last five years there has been a strong focus on research in the financial and Micro, Small and Medium Enterprise environments within South Africa, Africa and Asia. Members of AfricaScope have provided technical expertise into the implementation of financial and MSME surveys in countries like Botswana, Tanzania, Zambia, Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, Mozambique, Rwanda, Uganda, Pakistan and Thailand.

AfricaScope has considerable experience in public sector-based quantitative and qualitative research arena. More recently Craig Schwabe has acted as a technical adviser in the implementation of Citizen report card surveys in Ghana, Sierra Leone and Mozambique. Bob Currin has overseen the implementation of a socio-economic and health survey in the Royal Bafokeng Nation. 

Over the years the members of AfricaScope have developed strong relationships with associates that allow it to conduct its work. AfricaScope has also developed strong partnerships with organizations in the development of many of its unique products and services.