Publication: Firms in Ethiopia’s Industrial Parks: COVID-19 Impacts, Challenges, and Government Response
Loading...
Published
2020-09-24
ISSN
Date
2020-10-06
Editor(s)
Abstract
The Coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic poses a challenge for Ethiopia’s ambitious industrialization agenda focused on export-oriented light manufacturing. This note summarizes results from a survey of firms in Ethiopia’s industrial parks. The data suggests that over the past months, the pandemic has severely impacted firms’ ability to produce and sell their output. The availability and affordability of foreign inputs and the availability of labor are widely reported as constraints to production. Government support measures have not reached the majority of firms. After these initial demand- and supply-side shocks, firms in industrial parks are now entering a new uncertain phase: over the next six months, firms expect that orders will decrease by an average of 20 percent and employment by 17 percent compared to the same period last year. These findings illustrate the need for sustained support to protect firms and workers from the impacts of the pandemic and to preserve the significant investments made in this sector. Wage subsidy schemes and working capital loan programs will be appropriate to mitigate large-scale job losses.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Mengistu, Andualem; Krishnan, Pramila; Maaskant, Koen; Meyer, Christian Johannes; Krkoska, Eduard. 2020. Firms in Ethiopia’s Industrial Parks: COVID-19 Impacts, Challenges, and Government Response. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/34573 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Wages and Compensation in Ethiopia’s Industrial Parks(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-04)Jobs in exporting industries tend to pay higher wages than comparable jobs in firms focused on the domestic market. In Ethiopia, where the government has pursued an ambitious industrialization agenda, systematic data on wages in industrial parks has been scarce. This note provides an overview of worker compensation using novel firm-level data. The data shows that before the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, a majority of industrial park firms’ base salary exceeded the cost of basic needs as measured by the local poverty line. When bonuses, overtime pay, incentive pay, and in-kind benefits are taken into account, the median monetary value of the total compensation package is roughly fourfold of the cost of basic needs. Nevertheless, there is significant variation in pay, both within and between industrial parks with 21 percent of the surveyed firms reporting a base pay below the local poverty line. Much of the variation can be explained by the different industries in which these firms operate. Although lack of reliable data on the broader labor market makes rigorous comparisons challenging, the survey data suggests that base pay in the industrial parks is comparable with pay in the labor markets surrounding the parks.Publication The Impact of COVID-19 on Workers in Hawassa Industrial Park(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-06-03)As part of the World Bank Group’s analytical work program on More, better, and more inclusive jobs: Preparing for successful industrialization in Ethiopia (funded by the UK Department for International Development), a team of researchers led by Morgan Hardy (New York University Abu Dhabi) and Christian Johannes Meyer (University of Oxford) is deploying high-frequency phone surveys on a representative sample of garment factory workers in Hawassa Industrial Park (HIP) to document how their lives are changing during the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) crisis. This Rapid Briefing Note reports the preliminary baseline results from 3,163 female respondents, summarizing the more detailed “Living Paper” written by the team of researchers. The data collection took place between April 28 and May 26, 2020.Publication Monitoring COVID-19 Impacts on Firms in Ethiopia, Report No. 8(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-09-25)This one-pager summarizes the results of the sixth round of the HFPS-F in Addis Ababa, implemented between August 17 and September 8, 2020. The information presented here is based on 331 firms that were still operational at the time of the survey. Firms that had temporarily closed because of the COVID pandemic were not interviewed in R6, which is a difference with the previous survey rounds (when temporarily closed firms were also interviewed). Firm closures will be looked at in detail in a separate brief.Publication Monitoring COVID-19 Impacts on Firms in Ethiopia, Report No. 2(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-05-15)The COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic and its negative economic effects create an urgent need for timely data and evidence to help monitor and mitigate the social and economic impacts of the crisis and protect the welfare of the least well-off in Ethiopia's society. To monitor the impacts of the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic on Ethiopia's economy and people and inform interventions and policy responses, the World Bank Ethiopia team, in collaboration with the government, designed and implemented two high-frequency phone surveys, one with firms and one with households.Publication COVID-19 and Trade in SSA(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-06-01)Measures taken to curtail the spread of COVID-19 have led to a sharp contraction of the global economy and an even larger decline in trade, with significant implications on the livelihoods of people in Africa. Despite the relatively low number of cases, the region's economy would be hard hit due to its high reliance on trade, heavy dependence on commodities, a fragile food system, and limited fiscal capacity to respond. This reinforces the region's inherent vulnerabilities, posing risks of wiping out the gains made in poverty reduction. Countries that have been registering robust growth face rapid growth declines. The response calls for a regional and global coordination to scale up safety nets, facilitate flow of essential goods and ease the region's debt burden to free some fiscal space. There is a need for active policies to support enterprises so that disruptions are not permanent. As they chart their operations beyond the pandemic, countries should reexamine their industrial policies and firms need to rethink their strategies to address emerging uncertainties.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Corporate Governance of State-Owned Enterprises : A Toolkit(Washington, DC, 2014-10-04)This Toolkit provides an overall framework with practical tools and information to help policymakers design and implement corporate governance reforms for state-owned enterprises. It covers the key elements of corporate governance, including legal and regulatory framework, state ownership arrangements, performance management systems, financial and fiscal discipline, boards of directors, transparency and disclosure, and protection of shareholders in mixed ownership companies. Experience shows that no one approach is universally applicable and the choice of measures depends on country and enterprise circumstances. The Toolkit thus provides a range of frameworks, concepts, case examples, checklists, and model documents that together aim to help government officials make the appropriate choices for their circumstances. The Toolkit concludes with guidance on managing the reform process, in particular how to prioritize and sequence reforms, build capacity, and engage with stakeholders.Publication Empowerment in Practice : From Analysis to Implementation(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2006)This book represents an effort to present an easily accessible framework to readers, especially those for whom empowerment remains a puzzling development concern, conceptually and in application. The book is divided into two parts. Part 1 explains how the empowerment framework can be used for understanding, measuring, monitoring, and operationalizing empowerment policy and practice. Part 2 presents summaries of each of the five country studies, using them to discuss how the empowerment framework can be applied in very different country and sector contexts and what lessons can be learned from these test cases. While this book can offer only a limited empirical basis for the positive association between empowerment and development outcomes, it does add to the body of work supporting the existence of such a relationship. Perhaps more importantly, it also provides a framework for future research to test the association and to prioritize practical interventions seeking to empower individuals and groups.Publication Impact Evaluation in Practice, Second Edition(Washington, DC: Inter-American Development Bank and World Bank, 2016-09-13)The second edition of the Impact Evaluation in Practice handbook is a comprehensive and accessible introduction to impact evaluation for policy makers and development practitioners. First published in 2011, it has been used widely across the development and academic communities. The book incorporates real-world examples to present practical guidelines for designing and implementing impact evaluations. Readers will gain an understanding of impact evaluations and the best ways to use them to design evidence-based policies and programs. The updated version covers the newest techniques for evaluating programs and includes state-of-the-art implementation advice, as well as an expanded set of examples and case studies that draw on recent development challenges. It also includes new material on research ethics and partnerships to conduct impact evaluation. The handbook is divided into four sections: Part One discusses what to evaluate and why; Part Two presents the main impact evaluation methods; Part Three addresses how to manage impact evaluations; Part Four reviews impact evaluation sampling and data collection. Case studies illustrate different applications of impact evaluations. The book links to complementary instructional material available online, including an applied case as well as questions and answers. The updated second edition will be a valuable resource for the international development community, universities, and policy makers looking to build better evidence around what works in development.Publication Digital Progress and Trends Report 2023(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-03-05)Digitalization is the transformational opportunity of our time. The digital sector has become a powerhouse of innovation, economic growth, and job creation. Value added in the IT services sector grew at 8 percent annually during 2000–22, nearly twice as fast as the global economy. Employment growth in IT services reached 7 percent annually, six times higher than total employment growth. The diffusion and adoption of digital technologies are just as critical as their invention. Digital uptake has accelerated since the COVID-19 pandemic, with 1.5 billion new internet users added from 2018 to 2022. The share of firms investing in digital solutions around the world has more than doubled from 2020 to 2022. Low-income countries, vulnerable populations, and small firms, however, have been falling behind, while transformative digital innovations such as artificial intelligence (AI) have been accelerating in higher-income countries. Although more than 90 percent of the population in high-income countries was online in 2022, only one in four people in low-income countries used the internet, and the speed of their connection was typically only a small fraction of that in wealthier countries. As businesses in technologically advanced countries integrate generative AI into their products and services, less than half of the businesses in many low- and middle-income countries have an internet connection. The growing digital divide is exacerbating the poverty and productivity gaps between richer and poorer economies. The Digital Progress and Trends Report series will track global digitalization progress and highlight policy trends, debates, and implications for low- and middle-income countries. The series adds to the global efforts to study the progress and trends of digitalization in two main ways: · By compiling, curating, and analyzing data from diverse sources to present a comprehensive picture of digitalization in low- and middle-income countries, including in-depth analyses on understudied topics. · By developing insights on policy opportunities, challenges, and debates and reflecting the perspectives of various stakeholders and the World Bank’s operational experiences. This report, the first in the series, aims to inform evidence-based policy making and motivate action among internal and external audiences and stakeholders. The report will bring global attention to high-performing countries that have valuable experience to share as well as to areas where efforts will need to be redoubled.Publication Environmental, Social, and Governance Investing(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-03-01)This primer responds to central banks’ growing demand for knowledge on social, governance, and environmental considerations (ESG) in the investment process. This area has gained traction in the last two decades. More recently, central banks’ interest in ESG has increased, but much of the information available is aimed at investors with different investment objectives and broadly diversified portfolios. The authors fill that information gap by reviewing the definitions of ESG and the main ESG investment approaches, including their applicability to asset classes. The authors then examine how foreign reserve managers can apply ESG investing in their reserve management operations. The authors find limited scope for implementing ESG strategies in reserve management, given that most central banks still invest primarily in sovereign bonds of major economies. Yet, the authors also identify opportunities and critical considerations for central banks interested in implementing ESG investing in their reserve management operations.