Final Evaluation for the Leather Initiative for Sustainable Employment Creation (LISEC) in Oromia Regional State, East Shewa Zone, Modjo Town, Ethiopia

Overview

This final evaluation assessed LISEC – Green Jobs in the Leather Sector. The project was implemented from January 2021 to April 2024 in Modjo Town and surrounding communities, East Shewa Zone, Oromia, Ethiopia. It was run by a consortium of People in Need (lead), the International Rescue Committee and Solidaridad, with EU Trust Fund funding. The project addressed youth and women's unemployment and conflict between tanneries and nearby communities over leather waste pollution. It worked through skills training, MSME and VSLA support, OSSC and TVET capacity building, tannery waste-management machinery, CSR and GBV response. The evaluation ran from April to August 2024. It used the OECD-DAC criteria to inform future programming.

Key findings

• 605 students completed TVET leather courses against a target of 500 (121%), and more than 95% of them obtained apprenticeships with tanneries in Addis Ababa or Modjo.
• 2,876 unemployed youth (987 male, 1,889 female) were supported under the Youth Leadership Programme, and about 69% of YLP graduates obtained jobs after training.
• The project created 1,060 new jobs (444 in the leather sector and 616 in other sectors). MSMEs supported exceeded the target by 53% (59 achieved against 31 planned), and MSME income rose by 22% over the project period.
• 22 VSLAs with 517 women were established against a target of 20. 68% of VSLA women reported economic independence at endline, against 30% at baseline.
• Among people in communities affected by tanneries, the share with an improved perception of tanneries' work rose from 18% at baseline to 75% at endline. This was linked to 32 company-funded CSR projects.
• At four tanneries, employee satisfaction rose from 65% at baseline to 87% at endline after occupational health and safety committees and grievance committees were set up. 322 GBV survivors received case management and psychosocial support, and 92% reported satisfaction against a 50% target.
• Procurement challenges limited the waste-management outcome. Six waste-to-product machines were delivered to Modjo tanneries and Modjo TVET College, but installation was not complete at the time of evaluation. Only 58% of MSMEs met the preset sustainability conditions at the end of the project.

In figures

Recommendations

• Work with stakeholders to improve VSLAs' access to credit, transform those with capacity into MSMEs, and link them to value chains and markets.
• Implement a further phase in Modjo to improve graduate employment, help tanneries comply with Leather Working Group (LWG) standards and install equipment in the remaining tanneries.
• Conduct an impact assessment later, as some impacts, including those of the tannery equipment, were still emerging.
• Engage youth in newer waste-management practices such as glue production, leather recycling and protein feed production, and create more job opportunities, including by strengthening the YLP model.
• Include a strong advocacy component in future programmes, and continue CSR awareness among local authorities, including support for a national CSR policy.
• Allow ample time for activities that depend on external processes, such as equipment procurement and CSR projects, and improve the scheduling of internal consortium coordination meetings.
• Engage tanneries early on M&E data access, and set clear beneficiary expectations about the extent and nature of support from the start.

Lessons learned

• New components such as converting waste into products and CSR needed more time for tanneries to understand and implement, and time was the main factor limiting the waste-management outcome.
• Procurement depends on factors outside the consortium's control, so it needs extra time, frequent risk review and mitigation measures.
• Building CSR into tannery business planning, rather than treating it as ad hoc giving, improved relations between tanneries and communities. CSR projects that communities identified themselves were well received.
• The YLP's practical, real-life experience produced higher employment rates among graduates than TVET training alone.
• Staff attrition at two consortium partners showed the need for staff motivation and retention measures. Having staff based locally improved efficiency.

Methodology

Mixed-methods evaluation against the OECD-DAC criteria. It combined a desk review of project documents, including the baseline, midline, endline and tannery gap assessment reports, with qualitative fieldwork from 18 June to 5 July 2024: 21 key informant interviews, 9 focus group discussions with 49 participants (13 male, 36 female), stories of significant change and observation. Quantitative data came from the March 2024 endline survey conducted by PIN.

Limitations

• The endline survey (March 2024) came before several activities were finished, including CSR projects, YLP business cash support and tannery machinery installation, so their effects were not captured.
• Machinery was not yet installed at the tanneries, so its use could not be observed and the impact on waste management could not be determined. The evaluators relied on details provided by Solidaridad.
• Recently established MSMEs were not fully functional, making impact and sustainability hard to assess, and the number of such MSMEs could not be confirmed.
• Focus groups reached 49 participants instead of the planned 64, and some key informants had to be rescheduled.
• Limited access to tannery employees hampered data collection. Security concerns meant only a few VSLA women were interviewed in one area, so that sample may not be representative.