MASP IV · Data Platform
East & Central Africa · 2026–2030
Solidaridad
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Decent Work

Working conditions, health and safety, wages and child labour.
Moderate evidence14 studies · updated Oct 2026

Workplace committees and standards improved conditions in leather and garment factories, but in artisanal gold mining protective equipment use stayed low and mercury use widespread across three rounds of Golden Line, and wages in tea and textiles remain far below a living wage.

Key evidence

  • At four Ethiopian tanneries, employee satisfaction rose from 65% to 87% after occupational health and safety and grievance committees were set up; 322 GBV survivors received case management. LISEC · Endline · 2024
  • Bottom Up: 10 factories complied with social standards (target 8), and 85.7% of 42 surveyed workers felt confident to report sexual harassment; only 5 of 8 factories had at least two measures for women's working conditions. Bottom Up · Endline · 2023
  • In Ethiopian textile and garment factories, the minimum wage is about USD 25 a month, about 20% of eligible workers are union members, and 61.1% said safety equipment is not provided. RS! · Baseline
  • Tea workers earn 35–68% of a living wage in Kenya and Uganda, and outsourcing cut Kenyan casual workers' monthly pay from KES 38,000 to an average of KES 18,000. RS! · Thematic studyRS! · Baseline · 2025
  • In artisanal gold mines, 97.3% of Kenyan and 62.1% of Tanzanian P2P miners had no health and safety training, and 95% (Tanzania) and 72% (Kenya) used mercury. P2P · Baseline
  • PfC improved working conditions for about 57,000 workers, 27% of its 2020 target, partly because targets rested on wrong assumptions about worker numbers. Practice for Change programme (PfC), excluding NI-SCOPS projects · Endline · 2020
  • Child labour appears across sectors: children used in production in 23% of Bungoma maize households, about 18% of Kalangala households hired a child for oil palm work, and 8% of Tanzanian miners reported children in their mine. CSV · BaselineNOPP · BaselineGfG · Baseline
  • At LISEC midline, 19 of Ethiopia's 34 tanneries had shut down and the rest ran at up to 30% capacity, linked to a forex surrender policy. Leather Initiative for Sustainable Employment and Job Creation (LISEC) Green Jobs Project · Midline

In figures

Tea wages as a share of a living wage% of living wage
Living wage (100)
Kenya, smallholder farm workers
Kenya, smallholder farm workers
40 % of living wage
40
Kenya, plantation workers
Kenya, plantation workers
68 % of living wage
68
Uganda, smallholder farm workers
Uganda, smallholder farm workers
40 % of living wage
40
Uganda, plantation workers
Uganda, plantation workers
35 % of living wage
35

Kenyan smallholder workers are compared with a single-adult living wage and plantation workers with a family living wage, as in the study.

RS! · Thematic study
Data table
Item% of living wage
Kenya, smallholder farm workers40
Kenya, plantation workers68
Uganda, smallholder farm workers40
Uganda, plantation workers35
Living wage100

Change over time

Golden Line (mine safety) Tanzania
  1. Baseline 201727% of mine workers used any protective gear (average 0.65 items); 58% of men and 37% of women had worked with mercury in the past month.
  2. Midline 2019Awareness of protective equipment high but use low; no reliable data showed a fall in mercury use and no functioning retorts were observed.
  3. Endline 2020PPE use still low (cost cited by 43%); concrete ponds for mercury handling largely successful, retorts not.
LISEC (tannery workers) Ethiopia
  1. Midline 2022Tannery wages (ETB 1,500–2,000) were no higher than TVET stipends; trainees preferred self-employment.
  2. Endline 2024Employee satisfaction at four tanneries rose from 65% to 87%; 1,060 new jobs created.

What works

  • Health and safety committees and grievance mechanisms inside workplaces improved worker satisfaction. LISEC · Endline · 2024
  • Economic incentives combined with practical skills quickly improved labour relations (union–management negotiations cut from four years to four days at Addis Ababa Abattoirs). GTI · Endline · 2021
  • A pragmatic internal verification scheme kept standards going when external verification was impossible. Bottom Up · Endline · 2023

What holds results back

Recommendations for programming

Evidence gaps & caveats

  • The gender wage gap and mercury reduction were not measured at Golden Line endline because earlier data were unreliable.
  • PPE use is self-reported and subject to social desirability bias.
  • Worker numbers on smallholder farms are poorly known, which makes targets unreliable.

Why this evidence rating: Consistent evidence across endlines, midlines and baselines in gold, leather, textiles and tea, including a three-round Golden Line trend, though largely self-reported.

Source studies (14)