Baseline Study for Cotton & Textile Project under Reclaim Sustainability! Program in Solidaridad East and Central Africa, Ethiopia

Overview

Baseline for the Reclaim Sustainability! Cotton & Textile project of Solidaridad East and Central Africa in Ethiopia. It covered Addis Ababa, Afar and SNNPR (Gamo and South Omo zones). Respondents included smallholder and commercial cotton farms, ginneries, textile and garment factories and their workers, unions and associations, federal and regional government offices, and CSOs. The study set baseline values for the programme results framework and identified implementation strategies. The report is dated January 2022.

Key findings

• Among textile and garment factory respondents, 53.0% rated respect for international labour norms as sustainable, 82.3% reported no underage employees and 84.1% reported equal opportunity for women. However, 61.1% said safety equipment is not provided and 78.7% said no food is supplied at work.
• 95.1% of factory respondents said businesses do not contribute to schooling facilities in the community, and 70.1% said they do not contribute to health facilities. Factories were also rated unsustainable on water, energy and emission control.
• The minimum wage in the textile and garment industry is about USD 25 per month. The minimum wage board set up by the new labour proclamation is not yet working.
• About 54,000 workers in 113 factories are union members and 25,000 more are joining. This is about 20% of workers who could join, and employers, especially foreign-owned firms, discourage membership.
• 49.5% of surveyed smallholder farmers (45 of 91) had never heard of sustainable farming. Smallholders have no tailored government policy, fall between the agriculture and industry ministries, and get prices set by middlemen.
• The study counted 10 private sustainability standards/policies, 4 inclusive business models, 15 public frameworks, 11 public sector actors and 13 active civil society actors. It found only 1 established dialogue platform (ILO-convened) and 2 CSO-led awareness campaigns.
• Frameworks exist but are poorly implemented, government units lack horizontal coordination, and certification alone has not ensured sustainable behaviour.

In figures

Recommendations

• Hold regular dialogue sessions bringing together the labour and industry ministries, the textile workers' federation and the trade union confederation on decent work, building on ILO initiatives.
• Create a dialogue platform between the ministries of agriculture and industry to clarify who is responsible for supporting smallholder cotton farmers.
• Advocate for the state industrial inputs enterprise to guarantee a market for smallholder cotton through a minimum support price, with government subsidy if the market fails.
• Advocate for the Ministry of Agriculture to supply improved cotton seed.
• Advocate for full implementation of the new labour proclamation, including workers' right to join unions and enforcement of a minimum wage.
• Provide continuous training on soft skills for workers, and on the benefits of sustainable practices for cotton farmers and factory owners and managers.
• Train smallholder cotton farmers on the benefits of primary cooperatives and support them to form cooperatives.

Methodology

Mixed methods: desk review of laws and strategies, a structured Kobo survey (sample size 404; 344 responses analysed, of which 48% were factory workers, 26.5% smallholder farmers, 24.1% commercial farm workers and 1.4% CSOs), 18 key informant interviews and observation. Survey data were analysed descriptively in SPSS, with Likert responses split into sustainable or not sustainable using BSCI and Higg index criteria.

Limitations

• The study did not cover traditional hand-loom weaving, where decent work concerns have been raised informally.
• Response rate was about 85%, because contract workers at commercial farms and ginneries were hard to reach and few CSOs responded to the questionnaire.