Worker Wellness Alliance

The United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Worker Wellness Alliance (WWA) project presents an agile and measurable platform for worker, community, government and private-sector engagement that aligns and supports Ethiopia in its Journey to Self-Reliance. WWA works in Hawassa City, which is home to the largest industrial park in Ethiopia. Industrial parks are new to the country, so WWA works with key stakeholders to adopt outside-the-park initiatives aimed at fostering stable, resilient and prosperous communities. Targeting two populations — newly recruited female factory workers and host community members — WWA implements interventions to support the arrival and integration of workers into the community of Hawassa City and increasing the ability of communities to benefit from the region’s growing population and expanding industrial base.

Key pillars of WWA include:

• Partnership and consensus building. Fostering partnership and consensus among: government, civil society organizations, bilateral and multilateral organizations, academia and private-sector stakeholders.
• Gender transformative programming. Focusing on the gender issues that constrain female workers’ successful assimilation and integration into host communities. Activities aim to increase the awareness of gender issues and work with communities to assist them in developing their own solutions. These discussions will include both women and men, allowing for the participants to put their knowledge into practice regarding gender norms and equality.
• Scalable and sustainable interventions. WWA is committed to serving as a platform of activities that can be quickly scaled and redirected based on the needs of the community and interests of the government and private sector. The project is committed to the development of measurable and adaptable interventions that are sustainable beyond the life of the project.

What are we doing?

The WWA project believes that if workers have accurate and reliable information on services and expectations, both at the point of recruitment and during the initial job entry process, and if host community businesses are better able to provide essential goods and services to incoming workers, then the communities will financially benefit and be positioned to meet the workers’ basic needs. This will result in sustainable improvements to improved worker retention.

Key activities

1. Community-led support for worker who have migrated.
2. Community welfare small grants pool, enterprise training and market linkages.