ETHIOPIA Hawassa Industrial Park Community Impact Evaluation What is the impact of factory employment on workers and the rural communities from which they originate? Hawassa Industrial Park The Hawassa Industrial Park, which opened in July 2016, has been described as the Ethiopian government’s “flagship” industrial park. It is anchored by global textile firm PVH (formerly Phillips Van Heusen), but 18 other firms have invested as well. Production started at relatively small scale late 2016, with the first exports mid-2017. By early 2019, about 25,000 workers were hired across the 52 factory sheds Context of the park. At full capacity, the park is Ethiopia is a low-income country with ambitious plans to become expected to employ 60,000 workers, Sub-Saharan Africa’s leader in light manufacturing. The Government working on a double shift. PVH alone of Ethiopia has embarked on an industrialization strategy based on expects to export $100m worth of the creation of special economic zones as centers of export-oriented clothing per year from Hawassa. In light manufacturing. The flagship industrial park of this strategy total, the government projects that the is located in Hawassa, a city with around 300,000 inhabitants in park could generate about $1 billion of southern Ethiopia. At full capacity, the Hawassa Industrial Park (HIP) exports per year. will provide employment to 60,000 workers, most of whom will be women aged 18 to 35 coming from outside Hawassa, from the wider ERITREA REPUBLIC OF OROMIA SUDAN YEMEN Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples’ Region (SNNPR). DJIBOUTI Ziway ADDIS GURAGE Lake ADDIS ABABA Ziway ABABA HARARI Area SILTI Relatively little is known about the impact of such industrial employment of Detail Jimma SOMALI Shala SOUTH SUDAN Lake on the economic, physical, and social well-being of workers and the SOMALIA Shashamane Denboya Awasa UGANDA KENYA Lake largely rural, agricultural communities from which they are recruited.This Source: OpenStreetMap contributors Hawassa S . N . N . P. Sodo Industrial Industrial evaluation seeks to shed light on these impacts. To do so, it aims to use S . N . N . P. Park Dilla the expansion of hiring for the park through a centralized, government- GAMO Abaya 0 30 60 Kilometers Lake GOFA led system that integrates recruitment, registration, grading, and soft PROJECT ZONES Arba Tore Minch REGION BOUNDARIES ZONE BOUNDARIES Ch'amo Gerba training of future workers — the Hawassa Industrial Park Sourcing and Lake MAIN ROADS Bule Hora CITIES AND TOWNS OROMIA Training Employees in the Region (HIPSTER) scheme. The HIPSTER is IBRD 44202 | FEBRUARY 2019 an intervention facilitated by Enterprise Partners, a social enterprise facilitating market development, and funded by UK aid. Impact Evaluation Research This impact evaluation (IE) seeks to study the impact of employment at the Hawassa Industrial Park on the economic, physical, and social well-being of workers, and the broader impact on the largely rural, agricultural communities from which these workers are recruited. More generally, the evaluation will shed light on the implications of large-scale, location-specific development projects on individuals and local communities. Methodologically, this IE uses a cluster-randomized control trial. level outcomes between those which receive this intensified Communities (clusters) are randomly assigned to an already- recruitment to those that did not. planned expansion of recruitment for the Hawassa Industrial Park. In “treated” communities, randomly selected eligble job seekers will be offered relocation allowance to Hawassa to begin Policy Relevance work in the industrial park. In each of our study communities, we The Hawassa Industrial Park is a cornerstone of the Government will collect detailed primary survey data to complement existing of Ethiopia’s ambitious industrialization strategy. It is seen by administrative data. the government as a blueprint for further parks in the country, and it represents the first large-scale investment by “high quality” Data collection will include baseline, midline (after 1 year), and garmenting firms that perceive Ethiopia as a frontier destination endline (after 2–3 years) household surveys, key informant for their production facilities. Accordingly, the project has high interviews, and community surveys to measure community-level political visibility in Ethiopia. Beyond its role as a flagship investment outcomes. In addition to surveying households that are eligible destination, the park represents a significant shock to the local for the recruitment program, we will collect representative data economy of Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples’ Region from randomly-selected households in each study community. (SNNPR), and to the national economy of Ethiopia. The team will collect detailed data on welfare outcomes that are harmonized with the World Bank-supported Ethiopia Living This project has a range of implications for productivity, structural Standards Measurement Survey (LSMS). In addition to these transformation, welfare, health, education and social norms. It is standard measures, the team will gather rich data on intrahousehold representative of a broader class of spatial development programs dynamics, gender norms, fertility, as well as cortisol levels, a range such as growth poles, growth corridors, and special economic zones of anthropometric measures, and mental health outcomes. (SEZs) that have been used by World Bank client governments and development partners as a tool to promote private-sector Using a pre-registered research design, our design allows us to development. Fully quantifying the impacts of such programs is estimate impacts at three levels of analysis. We will compare often challenging because generating counterfactual scenarios for individual-level outcomes of treated job seekers to job seekers in such place-specific investments is complex, and a full estimation control communities. We will additionally compare both household- of impact also requires an understanding of general equilibrium level and individual-level household member outcomes of treated effects in various markets at the same time. The research team households to households in control communities. For individual- hopes to make a step towards this understanding and thus inform level and household-level outcomes, we will also be able to wider development policy. estimate spillover effects by comparing outcomes for non-treated individuals and households in treated communities with those in For more information email dimetransport@worldbank.org or visit non-treated communities. Finally, we will compare community- www.worldbank.org/en/research/dime/brief/transport The ieConnect for Impact program links project teams with researchers to develop rigorous and innovative impact evaluations that both substantially improve the evidence-base for policy making and induce global shifts in transport policy. The ieConnect program is a collaboration between the World Bank’s Development Impact Evaluation (DIME) group in the Development Research Group and the Transport Global Practice (TR GP). This program is part of the Impact Evaluation to Development Impact (i2i) multi-donor trust fund and is funded with UK aid from the UK government (DFID) and by the European Union (EU).