Addis Ababa — Today, Ethiopian Investment Commission, together with the International Labour Organization (ILO), the BRIDGES Programme, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), and the Hawassa Industrial Park launched the Hawassa Industrial Park grievance-handling call center.
The center provides standardized anonymous grievance recording and counseling services to workers. Workers can report incidents by calling a hotline or visiting the center in person. The call center is expected to help resolve workers’ issues as they arise, including mitigating sexual harassment and gender-based violence. The numbers to reach the call center are 046-212-0087 and 046-212-0080.
Ethiopia’s textile and apparel sector has experienced a boom in export-led growth. The country aims to become one of the most competitive locations for light manufacturing. Trade agreements with the European Union through the Everything but Arms Act, (EBA) and with the United States through the African Growth and Opportunities Act, (AGOA) provide preferential trade access for Ethiopian goods. Ethiopia is using these advantages to attract investment and create jobs for young people. As of August 2018, Ethiopia attracted USD 4.1 billion in foreign direct investment, the highest of any African country. Recently, major investors have seized the opportunity to set up production facilities in Ethiopia’s industrial parks.
The apparel sector currently employs more than 100,000 workers, 85-90 percent of whom are women sewers. Hawassa Industrial Park employs around 35,000 factory workers, more than 80 percent of whom are women.
Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) services promote the well-being of workers. However, OSH services at a national and regional level are not addressing the current needs of the sector and very few factories have functional OSH management systems.
To strengthen labour management system in the industrial parks, Ethiopian Investment Commission, the ILO, the BRIDGES Programme, and GIZ collaborated to support the public industrial parks to establish communication platforms in support of occupational safety and health starting with the Hawassa Industrial Park.
The Hawassa Industrial Park workers’ call center is established to address workers’ grievances in a prompt and confidential way and to provide appropriate referral support and advice to promote sound labour relations by supporting the physical, mental, and emotional well-being of workers. The call center is placed under the Industrial Peace Directorate of the Ethiopian Investment Commission which aims to promote labour peace in the industrial parks.
Moreover, the center will enhance transparency and accountability by providing accurate and timely information about labour laws, standards and procedures to workers and employers in a simplified manner. It facilitates women’s economic empowerment and productivity improvement by ensuring the rights of women workers. It promotes a workplace that is free from violence and harassment by letting workers report on any work-related injuries and diseases at the workplace which helps to identify and enhance the prevention and protection mechanisms.
In addition, based on the frequently asked questions, the center will develop targeted programmes to address specific vulnerabilities and challenges facing workers.
The staff hired at the center will respond to questions and provide counseling and psycho-social support to callers and in-person visitors. The call center is a specialized telephone service that provides an effective way to listen to and counsel callers anonymously and disseminate information. The number will be accessible in Amharic and Sidama languages. Anonymity will ensure the caller can ask questions and raise issues that they otherwise might not. In offering anonymity, the center serves as a source of information that will not embarrass, label, or judge a caller. “The workers' call centre is the gateway to creating a human-centred investment that responds to the gaps in workers’ legal awareness and the lack of a systematic institutional mechanism to address grievances at the IP level. This call centre, which will indeed be useful to enhance sustainable industrial relations, is achieved through our development partners’ unique collaboration and support,” said Daniel Teressa, Deputy Commissioner, Ethiopian Investment Commission.
“The grievance-handling call center is a safe space for workers to voice their concerns and get solutions. This is very useful for safeguarding the workforce that’s 90% women and new to industrial orientation,” noted Henok Tenna, Team leader, BRIDGES Program.
“The workers’ call centre in Hawassa Industrial Park is an important step in giving voice to the workers, protecting workers’ rights and promoting sound labour relations in the park. Under the auspices of the Ethiopian Investment Commission and the HIP tripartite grievance redressal committee, the call centre will give advice and support to workers to address their grievances and concerns without fear of retaliation. This is particularly important in cases related to sexual harassment and Gender-Based Violence,” said Kidist Chala, Programme Head, OneILO/Siraye.
“The grievance-handling room provides a safe and confidential environment for employees to seek assistance when they encounter problems or violations of their rights. It is essential in meeting obligations under international human rights law and contributes to positive employee relations,” mentioned Yared Fekade, Acting Project Head & Component Manager, Sustainable Industrial Clusters (S.I.C.) Project.
While praising this initiative, Samuel Yalew Adela, Country Head, Ethiopia at the Mastercard Foundation stated, “The safety and wellbeing of young people and program participants is at most priority to the Mastercard Foundation. We hope this emerging practice and the experience we gain from this will encourage other IPs and those directly interacting with young people to develop similar platforms.”
About Ethiopian Investment Commission
The Ethiopian Investment Commission (EIC) is an autonomous government institution accountable to the country’s Investment Board, which is chaired by the Prime Minister. The commission is established with the objective to enhance the competitiveness of the national economy by promoting investments in productive and enabling sectors, creating more and better employment opportunities for Ethiopians and advance transfer of knowledge, skills and technology required for the development of the country, and to augment the role of the private sector in the country’s economic development. The commission also aims to increase foreign exchange earnings by encouraging the expansion in volume, variety and quality of the country’s export products and services and create an integrated economy by strengthening inter-sectoral and foreign—domestic investment linkages.
For more information about EIC, please visit https://www.investethiopia.gov.et/
About ILO
The only tripartite U.N. agency, since 1919 the ILO brings together governments, employers and workers of 187 member states , to set labour standards, develop policies and devise programmes promoting decent work for all women and men.
For more information, please visit: www.ilo.org
ILO Siraye Programme
With an initial focus on the garment and textile industries, the ILO in collaboration with tripartite partners has developed a comprehensive and coordinated programme ‘Advancing Decent Work and Inclusive Industrialization in Ethiopia’ (SIRAYE). The overarching development goal of the programme is to see improved respect for workers’ rights leading to greater incomes and compensation, enhanced safety, equality, voice, and representation. The programme also aims to lift industrial productivity and competitiveness to enable a global competitive textile and garment sector and encourage accountable and transparent government institutions. For more information about Siraye, please visit: ‘Advancing Decent Work and Inclusive Industrialization in Ethiopia
About the German Development Cooperation
The German Development Cooperation has been supporting the Ethiopian Government initiatives for over 50 years. We work together with our partners in support of their socio- economic reform agenda, aiming to reduce poverty, promote economic growth, and create jobs. Our work contributes to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals and is implemented in line with the Ethiopian-German cooperation agreements.
In line with the Ethiopian Home-Grown Economic Reform, the British and German governments are supporting the country’s pathway towards industrialization through the implementation of a joint project named Sustainable Industrial Clusters (S.I.C.). The project is implemented under the umbrella of the German Cooperation by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH with a co-financing agreement between the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) of the United Kingdom and the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). The project has the objective of fostering job-effective growth while improving social and environmental sustainability in Ethiopia’s manufacturing sector. For more information about S.I.C., please visit this webpage and the GIZ Ethiopia and Djibouti LinkedIn channel.
About the Mastercard Foundation
The Mastercard Foundation works with visionary organizations to enable young people in Africa and in Indigenous communities in Canada to access dignified and fulfilling work. It is one of the largest private foundations in the world with a mission to advance learning and promote financial inclusion to create an inclusive and equitable world. The Foundation was created by Mastercard in 2006 as an independent organization with its own Board of Directors and management. For more information on the Foundation, please visit: www.mastercardfdn.org
About First Consult
First Consult is a leading development consulting organization specializing in economic development in Ethiopia. With a focus on private sector, financial sector and human capital development since 2005, First Consult has built and worked in over 500 partnerships that span private sector, government and development actors. First Consult strives to solve the most critical development challenges of our time by supporting the building of strong local institutions and the implementation of national strategies. The core focus on youth development and women’s economic empowerment is central to the mission of First Consult, which is to realize an inclusive and sustainable development that benefits all. For more information about First Consult, please visit: https://firstconsultet.com/main/home
About the BRIDGES Programme
The BRIDGES Programme,a five-year initiative, aims to create employment opportunities for young women and men by unlocking the job creation potential of industrial parks (IPs), other large enterprises, and their surrounding ecosystem including micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs). Through the programme, BRIDGES works to support the creation of close to 600,000 jobs for young people (80% women) and 15,000 micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs). The BRIDGES Programme is comprised of four focus areas: Employment Linkage, Enterprise Development, Enterprise Competitiveness, and Access to Finance. Follow the BRIDGES Programme on: https://twitter.com/BridgesEthiopia| https://www.facebook.com/BridgesEthio
Contacts:
Ethiopian Investment Commission
Fekadu, Labour Market Analytics Director
Telephone: +251- 9-03-37-94-21
Email: Fekadu.Nigussie@eic.gov.et
ILO
Kidist Chala, Programme Head, OneILO/Siraye
Telephone: +251-11-521-2034
Email: kidist@ilo.org
First Consult
kram Mohammed, Lead, Employment Linkage Bridge, BRIDGES Programme
Telephone: +251 114 401 473
Email: emohammed@firstconsultet.com
GIZ
Communications & PR Unit, GIZ Country Office Addis Ababa
Telephone: +251 115 180 200
Email: communications-eth@giz.de
Mastercard Foundation
Simret Yasabu, Lead, Program Communications
Telephone: +251 988 80 57 66
Email: syasabu@mastercardfdn.org
