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Promoting Workers’ Rights and Gender Equality at Work in Africa - Final evaluation

eval_number:

3619

eval_url:

https://webapps.ilo.org/ievaldiscovery/eval/3619

lessons_learned:

themes:

theme:

Small or micro - enterprises

category:

Enterprises

---

comments:

The targeted users of this lesson learned are ILO, the implementing partners as well as the respective constituents and companies.

challenges:

One challenge was engaging with the larger company, which involved several failed attempts to set up meetings to discuss potential collaboration and mutual benefits. The likely reason for this difficulty is that the large company already has its own plans and resources to establish childcare facilities, making third-party support, with its relatively small investment, unnecessary and unattractive.

success:

It is reasonable to assume that an investment to set up a childcare centre in the larger company could have resulted in windfall gains for the company.

context:

The project was implemented in Ethiopia and aimed at improving equality at work, aiming to enhance gender equality in the garment and textiles sector. It necessitated the openness of private sector companies to engage with the project team, making infrastructure adjustments, and shoulder the cost for maintaining the childcare centres. An important precondition to consider was that the garment and textiles sector faces high staff fluctuation, as women tend to maternity care, decreasing productivity.

description:

Engaging with small- and medium-sized firms in Ethiopia on the establishment of childcare centres proved more effective than with large companies.In Ethiopia, the project collaborated with four garment and textile companies, selected from a pool of 12 that underwent a “factory assessment” to design relevant care solutions. One of the solutions was setting-up childcare centres at the companies. To test the feasibility and suitability in different company settings, four companies were selected with different sizes and staff numbers. These companies, located in various parts of Addis Ababa, have staff sizes ranging from 50 to 600 workers, most of whom are women. The underlying idea was to gather experience for future interventions of this kind. Furthermore, involving a large company should signal to smaller and medium-sized companies that investing in childcare centres is worthwhile.

administrative_issues:

The lesson learned suggests that ILO and implementing partners continue considering the pros and cons of partnering with different actors, including their incentives to engage.

url:

https://webapps.ilo.org/ievaldiscovery/lessons/2297350

---

location:

country:

Africa - regional

region:

Africa

---

eval_title:

Promoting Workers’ Rights and Gender Equality at Work in Africa - Final evaluation