034 document-travail-va

Agence Française de Développement
Working
Paper
November 2006 34
Vocational Training in the Informal Sector
Report on the Ethiopia Field Survey
Research financed by GTZ
(Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit)
Richard Walther, ITG Consultant
(walther.richard@wanadoo.fr)
Translation: Adam Ffoulkes Roberts
DEPARTEMENT DE LA RECHERCHE
Agence Française de Développement
Direction de la Stratégie
Département de la Recherche
5 rue Roland Barthes
75012 Paris - France
www.afd.fr

Foreword
This report is an integral part of the survey and analysis work launched by the Research Department of the French
Development Agency (Agence Française de Développement, AFD) on training in the informal sector in five African countries
(South Africa, Benin, Cameroon, Morocco and Senegal). It was commissioned by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and
uses the same working assumptions as those applied to the other countries studied. It is also complementary to the report on
Ethiopia, which was produced on behalf of the German technical co-operation agency (GTZ) and also used the methodologi-cal
framework developed by the AFD.
The Angola field survey was carried out with extensive support from the French Embassy. However, the objectives could not
have been met without assistance from Emilio Ferreira and Fernando Madeira, experts with the firm HRD (Human Resources
Development) who helped the field survey mission to interpret the subtleties embedded in certain situations and accounts of
different experiences. Above all, they were able to convince certain people with little availability that they should provide the
survey team with information and analysis coming under their area of authority. The survey benefited from the expertise of
Anna Sofia Manzoni., who helped to identify the most legitimate Angolan representatives in the area studied and also provi-ded
her support in identifying documentary sources on the subject. The survey also benefited from the extremely useful help
of Abel Piqueras Candela, of the European Commission, who agreed to make a critical appraisal of the final report and nota-bly
checked that the sources quoted really do reflect the most recent changes in the country’s education and vocational trai-ning
policies.
Lastly, this report was also able to draw on extensive and very useful documentation, notably thanks to the representatives of
the European Commission Delegation, the UNDP, the DW, USAID and IDIA. They are very warmly thanked for their contribu-tions.
Working Paper N° 15 : Vocational Training in the Informal Sector - Concept Note.
Working Paper N° 16 : Vocational Training in the Informal Sector – Report on the Morocco Field Survey.
Working Paper N° 17 : Vocational Training in the Informal Sector – Report on the Cameroon Field Survey.
Working Paper N° 19 : Vocational Training in the Informal Sector – Report on the Benin Field Survey.
Working Paper N° 21 : Vocational Training in the Informal Sector – Report on the Senegal Field Survey.
Working Paper N° 30 : Vocational Training in the Informal Sector – Report on the South Africa Field Survey.
Working Paper N° 34 : Vocational Training in the Informal Sector – Report on the Ethiopia Field Survey.
Working Paper N° 35 : Vocational Training in the Informal Sector – Report on the Angola Field Survey.
The Ethiopian case study has been produced by the GTZ in partnership with the AFD as a part of efforts to align the action of
French and German development agencies.
Disclaimer
The analysis and conclusions of this document are those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the official position of
the AFD or its partner institutions.
© AFD Working paper No 34 Vocational Training in the Informal Sector - Report on the Ethiopia Field Survey 2

Table of contents
1. Introduction: Ethiopia, a country waking up to the reality of the informal sector 4
1.1. How the survey was carried out 4
1.2. The contribution of existing reports and studies 5
2. The country’s economic and social challenges 7
2.1. Growth is strong, but vulnerable to climatic and political conditions 7
2.2. Persistent poverty 8
2.3. Major educational needs 9
2.4. An essentially rural and informal labour force 11
2.4.1. A strong contrast between rural and urban activities 11
2.4.2. Difficulties in appraising the informal sector as a whole 12
3. Vocational training reform geared to the economic and social challenges 15
3.1. Current state of TVET 15
3.2. Towards a reform focusing on those concerned in the informal economy 16
3.2.1. The main thrust of the reform 17
3.2.2. The reform implementation process 18
3.2.3. The challenges of reform: moving from an institutional to a grassroots approach 22
4. Current training initiatives in the informal sector 23
4.1. The reality of traditional apprenticeship – a difficult issue 23
4.2. Public policies targeting the creation of micro activities 24
4.2.1. FEMSEDA entrepreneur training 24
4.2.2. The Dire Dawa REMSEDA’s integration and support role 25
4.2.3. The Addis Ababa weavers’ training project (ILO) 27
4.2.4. On-site training for MSEs in the building sector (GTZ) 29
4.3. The strategic role of women in the informal sector 30
4.3.1. The ILO survey and the profile of women entrepreneurs 30
4.3.2. Dire Dawa Women Entrepreneurs Association (DDWEA) 31
4.3.3. Dire Dawa Women’s Association (DDWA) 31
4.3.4. A training programme for empowering women 32
4.4. Varied experiences from the world of agriculture 32
4.4.1. The highly informal nature of employment in rural areas 33

Table of contents
4.4.2. Training farmers and agricultural development officials 33
4.4.3. Training the rural population in community skills training centres (CSTC) 33
4.4.4. The innovative activities of the Harar technical and agricultural training centre 35
4.4.5. NGO actions 37
5. Future developments and actions 39
5.1. TVET reform and the opportunities for the informal sector 39
5.1.1. Training institutions can ensure that training becomes an effective aspect of social
and economic development 39
5.1.2. The TVET system: skills assessment and certification for informal sector workers 41
5.2. The outreach of reform in the informal sector 42
5.2.1. The low impact of the training system on the informal sector 42
5.2.2. TVET reform and the lack of recognition of skills development processes in the informal economy 43
5.2.3. A paradigm shift with limited effects 43
5.3. The challenge of revitalising the informal sector 44
5.3.1. Looking closely at the real potential of traditional apprenticeship and self-learning methods 44
5.3.2. The need for a qualitative analysis of informal economy occupations 45
5.3.3. The need to go through with plans to recognise skills acquired in the informal sector 45
5.3.4. The need to strengthen sectoral, territorial and institutional dynamics 45
5.3.5. How to have informal sector workers take on responsibility for their own training and skills 46
In conclusion: the need to refocus the reform on grassroots initiatives 48
Appendix: recommendations and proposals for action 49
List of acronyms and abbreviations 51
References 52

1. Introduction: Ethiopia, a country waking up to the reality
of the informal sector
The Ethiopian government is undertaking a complete
reform of its education and vocational training system and
wants the informal sector to be included in any changes.
This is an ambitious strategy, which will entail a complete
overhaul of the education and training system, focusing on
outcomes and responding to the economy’s needs, thus
contributing to the country’s development. It will also mean
integrating the different kinds of training systems (formal,
non-formal, informal) into an overall approach focusing on
skills that have previously acquired, through whichever
means. This shift from a unified system to a flexible and
modular one, and from a qualification-based paradigm to
one based on acquired vocational skills, offers a real oppor-tunity
for those working in the informal sector to obtain
recognised qualifications. The reform notably includes
plans for Centres of Competence whose purpose will be to
acknowledge not only skills acquired through experience
and work, but also those obtained through the various exist-ing
types of training.
However, the inclusion of informal sector workers among
the beneficiaries of the reform is not as easy as it sounds.
The various officials met during the survey will have to
acknowledge the reality of the informal sector and econo-my.
This will not come easily. During our interviews, for
example, it was difficult, if not impossible, to obtain precise
figures concerning the informal sector’s role in the labour
market or its contribution to national wealth. It was even
more difficult to gain any idea of the real situation concern-ing
production and service activities in the informal sector,
or to identify the traditional methods used for acquiring
knowledge and know-how. Differing opinions were
expressed and there was much debate as to the existence
or otherwise of traditional forms of apprenticeship. It was as
if the informal sector was viewed in terms of the role
assigned to it by the reform, rather than by taking account
of the actual situation and trends.
In this respect, Ethiopia is at a crossroads. Domestic work-ers,
women involved in income-generating activities, street
vendors, small-holders vulnerable to the vagaries of the
weather and all the micro-enterprises involved in production
and service activities will not see any lasting improvement
in their situation unless the reform acknowledges the reali-ty
of this situation and take steps to improve it. Moreover,
the reform will not succeed in achieving its aim of training
all those involved in economic production unless it takes
account of the sector as it exists, and, more importantly,
unless it involves and exploits the potential of existing
stakeholders, partners and trends.
The operational success of the current reform will undoubt-edly
enable Ethiopia’s informal sector to shift from a para-digm
of mere survival to one of growth and development.
However, this will only happen if the reform, which is
designed to facilitate the recognition and accreditation of
the sector’s human and vocational capital, first of all helps
to develop and enhance what already exists instead of pur-suing
its own training agenda.

1. Introduction: Ethiopia, a country waking up to the reality of the informal sector
1.1. How the survey was carried out
The Ethiopia field survey differs from those carried out in
the other countries in that it is the result of a fruitful part-nership
between German and French development agen-cies,
namely the German Technical Co-operation Agency
(Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit - GTZ),
which provides technical assistance to the Ethiopian
authorities in the design and delivery of the reform of tech-nical
and vocational education and training (TVET), and the
French development agency (Agence Française de
Développement – AFD), which has overall responsibility for
the study on vocational training in the informal sector.
The Ethiopia survey reflects the desire of the German and
French agencies to align their thinking and efforts in the
education and training field. It was funded under the Ethio-
German TVET project, which started in 1999, and was
organised further to a joint agreement between the
Ethiopian education authorities and German technical
assistance providers. The various German development aid
agencies constitute the largest donor and support provider
in the current process of vocational training reform.1 The
survey was carried out between 5 and 16 September 2006.
It started in Addis Ababa, where meetings were held with
the various officials responsible at federal and regional lev-els
in the various ministries involved in vocational training.
Meetings took place with the major international organisa-tions
involved in this field, as well as with national employ-ers’
and trade union federations. It was also possible to
meet some of the actors working closely with those eco-nomically
and professionally active in the informal sector.
After the interviews in the capital, the survey was complet-ed
by a field trip to the Dire Dawa region, where it was pos-sible
to interview project leaders working with micro-enter-prises
and production and service units, as well as some of
the workers who actually benefited from the training and
skills development activities. These meetings were particu-larly
useful in that they shed light on the real situation in the
informal economy and the way in which those working in it
are trying to raise themselves above subsistence level.
1.2. The contribution of existing reports and studies
Unlike Morocco and Cameroon, Ethiopia has not undertak-en
any specific national surveys on the informal economy.
Neither has Addis Ababa been the subject of a specific sur-vey
such as those carried out for the major capital cities of
West Africa.2 However, the 2005 Labour Force Survey car-ried
out by the Central Statistical Agency (CSA) of Ethiopia3
provides some data which can be used to make an objec-tive
appraisal of the significance and role of those working
in the informal sector.
However, current data and forecast trends concerning the
economic, social and educational situation are widely avail-able.
The Plan for Accelerated and Sustained Development
to End Poverty (PASDEP),4 published in October 2005, fol-lows
on from the Sustainable Development and Poverty
Reduction Program (SDPRP).5 It describes in detail the
progress made since 2000 and sets out the major policies
and means required to enable Ethiopia to achieve econom-ic
growth and reduce poverty. It also includes useful data for
this study, notably regarding what is happening in the edu-cation
and training area and how efforts to boost micro and
small enterprises (MSEs) can improve national economic
growth and reduce unemployment, and on the strategic
sectors and market niches which have job growth potential.
This plan thus combines economic strategy, a skills devel-
1 German technical assistance in the reform of TVET is being supported by most institutions
or organisations specialised in international development aid: the Centre for International
Migration (Center für Internationale Migration - CIM), the German Development Service
(Deutscher Entwicklungsdienst - DED), Capacity Building International (Internationale
Weiterbildung und Entwicklung gGmbh - InWEnt) and Senior Expert Service (SES). The
GTZ, which is the technical cooperation agency, is responsible for coordinating all of the
partners involved. The German Development Bank KfW also provides financial support for
some parts of the reform programme.
2 STATECO, (2005), Méthodes statistiques et économiques pour le développement et la
transition, No. 99.
3 Central Statistical Agency, (2006), The 2005 Labour Force Survey.
4 Ministry of Finance and Economic Development (MoFED), (2005), Ethiopia: Building on
Progress: A Plan for Accelerated and Sustained Development to End Poverty (PASDEP)
(2005/6-2009/10).
5 The Sustainable Development and Poverty Reduction Program (SDPRP) covered the
years 2000/01-2003/04.

1. Introduction: Ethiopia, a country waking up to the reality of the informal sector
phases of its development. The reform’s implementation
framework, notably regarding the inclusion of non-formal
training in the future TVET system, is dealt with in a sepa-rate
document which has been produced by the Education
Ministry with German technical assistance.8
All of these documents, which are constantly being updat-ed,
clearly show that the inclusion of vocational training in
the country’s development strategy, and notably efforts to
recognise the informal sector’s role and skills needs, is at
the heart of the political agenda.
The only things missing from this comprehensive bibliogra-phy
are a very detailed analysis of the informal sector/econ-omy,
and an objective picture of its contribution to the coun-try’s
growth and poverty-reduction policy.
6 Ministry of Education, (2005), Education Sector Development Program (ESDP-III),
2005/2006-2010, Program Action Plan (PAP).
7 Ministry of Education (September 2006), National Technical and Vocational Education and
Training (TVET) Strategy.
8 Engineering Capacity Building Program (ECPB, July 2006), Non-Formal TVET
Implementation Framework, Building Ethiopia.
opment strategy, and the inclusion of informal sector work-ers
in the vision of the country’s future.
The third phase of the Education Sector Development
Program (ESDP-III),6 which follows on from a programme
initially launched by the Ethiopian Government in 1997,
gives an overview of the education system and explains in
detail how training and education policies are contributing
to the overall strategy for boosting growth and reducing
poverty.
Information on the current TVET reform may be found in a
number of reports, the most important of which is the
National Technical and Vocational Education and Training
(TVET) Strategy.7 The latest version of this report was
being completed during our survey. The document sets out
and explains the reform’s key guidelines and the various

2. The country’s economic and social challenges
Ethiopia’s informal sector is part of an economy that
remains heavily dependent on the primary sector, although
a noticeable shift towards services and production activities
is under way. It has also been fully included in the policy to
combat poverty and reduce illiteracy and under-education
rates among the population.
2.1. Growth is strong, but vulnerable to climatic and political conditions
Since the Federal State was established in 1994, Ethiopia
has enjoyed a relatively sustained rate of growth, signifi-cantly
above that of Sub-Saharan Africa as a whole.
However, this rate suddenly fell from 8.8% to 2.7% in 2002,
and there was negative growth in 2003 (-3.7%). This was
due to the drought that afflicted the country in 2002/2003.
Economic growth then peaked at an unprecedented 13.1%
in 2004, mainly due to the quick recovery of agricultural pro-duction.
According to the OECD, the Ethiopian economy
should continue to show good results following the 2004
peak. Economic growth for 2004/2005 was 6.8% and a rate
of 5.8% has been forecast for 2005/2006.
Table 1. GDP growth: Ethiopia and Sub-Saharan Africa
1990 1995 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004
CGDP (current prices, in billions of dollars), Ethiopia 8.61 5.78 6.53 6.51 6.06 6.65 8
GDP (current prices, in billions of dollars) Sub-Saharan Africa 298.38 317.52 326.24 324.87 337.21 439.29 ..
Annual GDP growth, Ethiopia (%) 2.6 6.1 6.0 8.8 2.7 -3.7 13.1
Annual GDP growth, Sub-Saharan Africa (%) L 3.8 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.9 4.8
GDP per capita (in constant 2000 dollars), Ethiopia 94.7 90.2 101.5 108.0 108.6 102.4 ..
Gross National Income (GNI) per capita, Ethiopia 170 110 110 110 100 90 110
Source: World Bank (2005), World Development Indicators.
The Ethiopian economy is heavily driven by the agricultural
sector, which represented 42.1% of GDP in 2004,9 employs
80% of the population (89% in 2001 according to World
Bank figures) and provides around 90% of export revenue.
The estimated increase in agricultural production is 6.6% in
2004/2005, and 7.4% in 2005/2006 and 2006/2007.
Agriculture receives support from public aid programmes
such as the national food security programme, and benefits
from the extension of public services to rural areas and the
protection of farmers’ rights. However, given the constraints
affecting agricultural markets (partially due to the lack of
roads), low levels of productivity (due to the limited use of
pesticides and fertilisers, irregular rainfall, poor soil fertility,
and environmental degradation)10 as well as chronic short-ages
of foodstuffs, the OECD estimates that approximately
5 million Ethiopians continue to depend on food aid.
Services represented 46.5% of GDP in 2004. This sector
grew by approximately 7% between 2004 and 2005, chiefly
9 OECD (2006), African Economic Outlook 2005/2006 – Country Studies: Ethiopia.
10 World Food Programme (2006), Draft County Programme - Ethiopia 10430.0 (2007-2011).

as a result of the growth in the health and education sec-tors,
as well as in transport and communications.
Industry, which represented 11.4% of GDP in 2004, showed
real growth of approximately 7% over the 2004/2005 peri-od.
This was mainly generated by a high level of household
and business demand for construction services, and the
development of the mining and quarrying industries.
Growth in service activities and a genuinely modern indus-try
appears to be constrained by the fact that Ethiopia has
a predominantly public sector economy and is finding it dif-ficult
to introduce effective privatisation policies.
The country has considerable unexploited resources
(hydroelectricity, minerals, tourism, etc.) There are a num-ber
of growth niches just waiting to be exploited. 2004 saw
the rapid emergence of a horticultural sector, which contin-ued
to show strong signs of growth in 2005.11
Ethiopia’s balance of trade has a structural deficit. Exports
are essentially generated by coffee (Ethiopia is the world’s
sixth largest producer), where the downward trend in prices
is likely to continue in view of the global surplus.
Conversely, the increase in import prices, in particular of oil
and steel, has worsened the country’s trade deficit, which
reached 20.4% of GDP in 2003/2004. Ethiopia relies on
multilateral and bilateral international funding to cover its
budget deficit and also to finance part of its investment pro-gramme.
The present economic situation is however threatened by
recent political developments. The violence that broke out
as a result of the contested election results in May 2005,
and the ensuing brutal repression of the opposition, jeopar-dised
political stability and led to the freezing of part of the
international aid budget ($375 million in December 2005,
which is equivalent to 10% of the country’s revenue).12 The
growing risk of conflict with Eritrea should also be stressed;
there has been a constant increase in tension between the
two countries in recent years, despite the peace agreement
signed in December 2000.
Table 2. GDP in 2004, by sector
As a % of Ethiopia’s GDP
Agriculture 42.1
Manufacturing industries 4.6
Other industries 6.8
Trade, hotels and restaurants 8.6
Transport, storage and communications 7.0
Public services 14.7
Other services 16.2
Source: AfDB/OECD 2006.
2.2. Persistent poverty
Table 3. Growth of GDP per capita
2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006
(estimated) (anticipated)
GDP per capita, in dollars 120 109 115 137 153 170
GDP per capita in Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) 723 727 691 769 823 858
Source: International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Apart from the 2002/2003 period when Ethiopia faced a
general economic slowdown, GDP per capita has been
gradually and consistently increasing over recent years.
However, in spite of this encouraging economic perform-ance,
Ethiopia remains one of the poorest countries in the
world. It was ranked 170th out of 177 countries in the
UNDP’s Human Development Index (HDI) in 2005.13
Despite the constant increase in Ethiopia’s HDI, a large
section of the population continues to live in poverty. In
2000, 77.8% of Ethiopians lived on less than $2 a day, and
23% were living under the absolute poverty level ($1 a day).
11 Mission économique d’Addis-Abeba (2006), Fiche pays Ethiopie, MINEFI-DGTPE.
12 OECD, op. cit.
13 UNDP, (2005), Human Development Report.

Studies carried out under the PASDEP show that average
growth of 4% over the coming years would not be enough
to reduce the level of absolute poverty. At this rate of
growth, more than 20 million Ethiopians will still be living in
poverty in 2015. An annual growth of at least 8% would be
needed to achieve the Millennium Goals to cut current
poverty levels by half.
Ethiopia is thus one of Africa’s chief recipients of World
Bank and EU development aid. In 2004, Ethiopia received
aid worth a total of $1.2 billion, which is approximately
equivalent to 16% of its GDP14.
Under the PASDEP’s current phase (2006-2011), it should
be possible to improve the current situation thanks to
increased productivity growth in agriculture, improved man-agement
of natural resources, food security and diversifica-tion
of the means of subsistence.15
Ethiopia also benefits from the Heavily Indebted Poor
Countries (HIPC) Initiative. It completed the process on 20
April 2004, thus opening the way for cancellation of multi-lateral
debt. This has permitted rescheduling which has
resulted in a reduction of nearly 80% of Ethiopia’s foreign
debt.16
2.3. Major educational needs
According to data from the National Population Office (2005),
Ethiopia has a population of 73 million. The country has had
an annual demographic growth rate of nearly 2.5% over the
last decade, which has now settled at 1.9% (World Bank,
2006). This means that Ethiopia has a young population
(45.4% of the population—in other words about 31.2 million
people—was aged under 14 in 2003), and that considerable
investment is thus needed in the education system.
In view of this situation, the Ethiopian government adopted
an education and training policy, from 1994 onwards. With
UNESCO’s help, it drew up a ten-year Education Sector
Development Programme (ESDP). The country is currently
in the third phase of this programme (ESDP III), which runs
from 2005 to 2011. The main aim of the programme is to
achieve the Millennium Goals through improved access to
Table 4. Literacy rates, Ethiopia compared with Sub-Saharan Africa
Ethiopia Sub-Saharan Africa
Literacy rate (% of people aged 15 and over) (2000-2004) 49.9 62.5
Female literacy rate (% of women aged 15 and over) (2000-2004) 40.3 54.8
Male literacy rate (% of men aged 15 and over) (2000-2004) 60 70.9
Youth literacy rate (% of 15- to 24-year olds) (2001) 67.5 70.5
Literacy rate of young women (% of 15- to 24-year old young women) (2001) 60.2 65.7
Literacy rate of young men (% of 15- to 24-year old young men) (2001) 74.8 75.7
Source: UNESCO, Institute of Statistics.
education and better quality teaching.
There are considerable challenges to be met in terms of lit-eracy.
According to UNDP data, Ethiopia’s illiteracy rates
were among the highest in the world until the mid-1970s.
UNESCO data for 2000-200417 shows that adult literacy
rates remain 12.6 points lower than the average for Sub-
Saharan Africa, and that there is a gap of nearly 20 points
between male and female literacy rates. They also show
however that literacy among young people aged between
15 and 24 is clearly on the increase, and that the disparities
between Ethiopia and the other countries of Sub-Saharan
Africa, and between young men and young women in
Ethiopia, are gradually being reduced thanks to the efforts
14 Mission économique d’Addis-Abeba, Fiche pays Ethiopie, MINEFI-DGTPE.
15 World Food Programme (2006), op.cit.
16 Mission économique, op. cit.
17 UNESCO’s data are more encouraging than those in the PASDEP (Plan for Accelerated
and Sustained Development to End Poverty), which indicates that in 2004, 62% of
Ethiopians were illiterate.

the country is making in order to develop its education sec-tor.
However, there are still significant disparities between
rural and urban areas, and these also need to be reduced.
UNESCO’s analysis of the net enrolment ratio18 shows that,
despite progress made in the area of literacy, education lev-els
in Ethiopia remain below those for Sub-Saharan Africa.
This net enrolment ratio is low for primary education com-pared
to other countries, remaining at under 50% of children
of school age. The repetition rate in primary education is rel-
Table 5. Progression and achievements in the education system (2004)
Ethiopia
Average number of years’ education ISCED20 1-6 years 6 (UIS estimate)
Repetition rate, primary education (%) 11
Survival rate into the grade for 10- to 11-year-olds (%) (2000-2004)21 62
Rate of transition from primary to secondary education (%) 85
atively low (11%) and the survival rate is 62% of children.19
However, in secondary education the net enrolment ratio is
around 25% of the age range concerned. This puts Ethiopia
Table 6. Primary and secondary school net enrolment ratios (2004)
at the same level as the average for Sub-Saharan Africa.
One of the reasons for this situation is the relatively high
transition rate from primary to secondary education; this
Ethiopia Sub-Saharan Africa
Net enrolment ratio, primary school (%) 46 65
Net enrolment ratio of girls, primary school (%) 44 63
Net enrolment ratio of boys, primary school (%) 49 67
Net enrolment ratio, secondary school (UIS estimate,22%) 25 24
Net enrolment ratio of girls, secondary school (UIS estimate, %) 19 21
Net enrolment ratio of boys, secondary school (UIS estimate, %) 31 26
was 85% in 2004.
The data provided by the PASDEP reinforce those provid-ed
by UNESCO.23 They show a gross enrolment ratio24 of
79.2% in 2004/05 (70.9% for girls and 87.3% for boys).
They also highlight extremely wide inter-regional dispari-ties,
with a rate of 125% for Addis Ababa compared with a
rate of 75 to 80% for the regions of Amhara and Dire Dawa,
and only 15 to 17% for the regions of Afar and Somalia.
Lastly, they show that between 1997 (the year the first
ESDP was launched) and the current phase of ESDP III,
the number of primary schools in Ethiopia rose from 10,394
to 16,078. This increase has however been coupled with a
rise in the teacher/pupil ratio. This stood at 57 in 1997 and
has risen to 69 in 2005 (compared to an average of 44 in
Sub-Saharan Africa), despite the aims of the successive
programmes to bring it down to 50.
Although Ethiopia spends an average of 4.6% of its GDP on
18 The net enrolment ratio is the percentage of enrolled children of the official age for the edu-cation
level indicated to the total population of that age. Net enrolment ratios exceeding
100% reflect discrepancies between these two data sets (UNDP, (2003), Human
Development Report).
19 According to 2006 World Bank data, the survival rate is only 51%, which would consider-ably
weaken the efficiency of the Ethiopian education system.
20 International Standard Classification of Education.
21 UNICEF.
22 UNESCO Institute for Statistics.
23 Ministry of Finance and Economic Development (MoFED) (2005), Ethiopia: Building on
Progress: A Plan for Accelerated and Sustained Development to End Poverty (PASDEP)
(2005/6-2009/10).
24 The gross enrolment ratio is the percentage of total number of children enrolled in primary
education, irrespective of age, and the population of the age group of those officially eligi-ble
for primary education in any given year. This indicator is widely used to assess the
overall level of participation in primary education and the capacity of the education system
to satisfy primary education needs (UNESCO).

education, a figure that puts the country in the higher brack-et
in terms of education spending across the region, con-siderable
efforts are still needed. However, the number of
teachers is appallingly low in relation to the number of chil-dren
of school age. According to the Ministry of Education,
the lack of teachers is the main factor hindering the
increase in primary education enrolment. This is why there
are plans, under ESDP III, to recruit 294,760 teachers with
a view to educating a maximum number of children and
reducing the teacher/pupil ratio to acceptable levels.
2.4. An essentially rural and informal labour force
The Labour Force Survey (LFS), carried out in 2005 by the
CSA,25 indicates a participation rate of the economically
active population (including all those over 10 years old) of
76.7% over the twelve months preceding the survey.
However, this figure varies widely according to gender and
areas of activity. For example, the participation rate is only
50.2% in urban areas, whereas it reaches 82% in rural
areas. The rate for men is 84.7% compared to 69% for
women. Similar differences can be seen as far as unem-ployment
is concerned.26 The rate of unemployment is
20.6% in cities, but only 2.6% in rural areas. There is bare-ly
any male unemployment in rural areas (0.9%), although
it is high in urban areas (13.7%). Female unemployment is
very high in urban areas (27.2%), but low in rural areas
(4.6%).
2.4.1. A strong contrast between rural and
urban activities
Analysis of the economically active population by cate-gories
of employment highlights differences between sec-tors,
in particular agriculture/fishing and services, as well as
between the kinds of jobs held by those working in these
sectors. These include skilled workers, workers doing ele-mentary
jobs (mainly in manufacturing), craftworkers and
Table 7. Breakdown of the economically active population by categories of workers
Categories of workers Overall participation rate Participation rate in urban areas Participation rate in rural areas
Those working in services or trade 6.7 24.8 4.5
Qualified workers in agriculture and fishing 40.5 8.2 44.5
Elementary jobs27 42.8 24.6 45.1
Crafts and related activities 7.0 22.6 5.1
Technicians and similar
workers 1.0 5.5 0.4
Others 2.0 14.3 0.4
Source: National Labour Force Survey, 2005.
technicians.
The breakdown by categories of activity/types of jobs con-firms
the fact that Ethiopia’s economy is heavily dependent
on the rural and agricultural sector (which employs more
than 25 million people out of a total economically active
population of 35 million). It also indicates that non-agricul-tural
service and production activities are mainly concen-trated
in urban areas. From this we can infer that the grow-ing
urbanisation of Ethiopia, which currently has one of the
highest rural population rates in the whole of Africa (85% of
total population and 90% of the population living under the
poverty level currently live in rural areas)28 will have a sig-nificant
impact on the type of work done by the economi-cally
active population. Service, crafts and technical activi-ties
are also likely to grow.
25 Central Statistical Agency of Ethiopia (2006), The 2005 National Labour Force Survey.
26 According to the person in charge of the LFS, the concept of unemployment used in
Ethiopia is that of flexible unemployment. This defines the unemployed as those who are
available for work whereas the strict definition used by the ILO is unemployed people avail-able
for work and looking for work.
27 The survey defines elementary activities as those carried out by day labourers in agricul-ture,
mining or building.
28 ECPB (2006), National Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET)
Strategy.

According to the survey, the distinction between skilled and
elementary activities does not appear to correspond to the
usual skills levels. It rather suggests that skilled workers in
agriculture and fishing have a fixed professional activity,
whereas workers classed in the elementary jobs category
are day labourers who change jobs depending on the work
available mainly in manufacturing. According to the survey
on the informal urban sector published in 2003,29 the term
“elementary job” refers to routine tasks that are usually of a
manual nature and require physical effort. Examples given
in the survey include street, market or door-to-door sales,
various kinds of washing and cleaning activities, cleaning
and maintenance in houses, hotels and offices, portering,
etc.
2.4.2. Difficulties in appraising the informal sec-tor
as a whole
The statistical data available (LFS 2005 and Informal Sector
Survey 2003) provide a detailed overview of Ethiopia’s
labour market, given that the two surveys furnish significant
data on the breakdown of the workforce and the respective
shares of types of activity according to a large number of cri-teria.
Amajor problem still remains, however, concerning the
identification of those working in the informal sector. The
concept used by the CSA only applies to urban areas, and it
is only possible to gain an overall view of the non-structured
economy by analogy, in other words by applying the
Agency’s indicators for urban areas to the rural sector.
A labour market dominated by domestic jobs and self-employment
The Labour Force Survey gives a detailed analysis of
employment status in Ethiopia, indicating in particular that
the majority of the economically active population is either
unpaid family workers (50.3%) or self-employees/own
account workers (40.9%). Although the available data does
not enable any precise classification of these workers, there
is no doubt that most of the activities covered here are infor-mal,
in that they are above all based on occasional employ-ment
(according to the term “day labourer” used to define
elementary activities), family, personal or social links
(unpaid family workers) rather than jobs covered by a prop-er
employment agreement including guarantees.30 The
table on the breakdown of the economically active popula-tion
according to employment status shows that at most
8.8% have salaried employee status and thus the possibili-ty
of a formal employment contract.
On the basis of these data, it is impossible to say that all
jobs outside public administration and private enterprises
are in the informal economy, although there are strong
grounds for presuming this to be the case. The results of
the 2003 Informal Sector Survey31 make it easier to give an
Table 8. Breakdown of the economically active population according to type of employment
Employee status As a % of overall As a % of urban As a % of rural
participation/activity rate participation/activity rate participation/activity rate
Government employees 2.6 16.5 0.9
Self-employees/own account workers 40.9 40.3 41.0
Unpaid family workers 50.3 15.0 54.6
Private organisation 2.9 15.1 1.4
Others 3.3 13.1 3.5
Source: National Labour Force Survey, 2005.
accurate interpretation of the 2005 survey on the real situ-ation
in the overall labour market.
Those working in the informal sector do so by necessity,
are left to themselves, and are mainly self-taught
In its introduction to the Informal Sector Survey, the
Statistical Agency defines the informal sector as existing in
a specific context (urban areas only). It also uses multiple
criteria that are much wider than simply a business with no
29 Central Statistical Agency (2003), Report on Urban Informal Sector, Sample Survey.
30 See the definition of informal employment in R. Walther, (2006), La formation en secteur
informel, Note de problématique, AFD Working Paper No.15.
31 Central Statistical Agency (2003), Op.cit.

specific accounting system: the definition used in the sur-veys
identified in the other countries visited. The basic def-inition
used is that the informal sector refers to activities
which are carried out in the home or in a single-person
enterprise by the owner alone or by the owner and a very
small number of employees. The wider definition includes
the following criteria:
the informal enterprise is not usually officially registered
and has a low level of organisation, productivity, and
profitability;
it has limited access to the market, to credit agencies, to
formal training and to public services;
it has very small or no fixed premises, and is usually
located in the family’s home;
it is not recognised, supported or regulated by the pub-lic
authorities and does not comply with social protec-tion
regulations, employment legislation or health and
safety provisions.
Results of the 2003 survey on the informal sector are the
following:
informal enterprises employ 50.6% of the urban eco-nomically
active population;
out of the 799,352 people interviewed as part of the sur-vey,
43.29% work in manufacturing and 37.78% in the
trade or hotel and catering sectors;
99.09% of enterprises have a single owner. Ownership
is based on a structured partnership in only 0.56% of
cases. Although the survey states that co-operatives
and associations are on the increase, these presently
represent only a very small percentage of informal
enterprises;
the capital of informal enterprises is made up of 90%
personal or family capital. 0.12% have obtained a bank
loan, 0.74% have received funding from micro-credit
organisations, and 1.04% receive support/funding from
public authorities and/or NGOs;
63% of the value-added of the sector is generated by
trade and hotel and catering, and 25% by manufactur-ing.
Next by order of importance are personal services,
urban agriculture, and transport;
people choose to work in the informal sector mainly
because they have no other alternative (41.73%) and/or
because little investment is required (36.73%). For only
4.54% is it a deliberate choice;
workers in this sector acquire their skills through being
self-taught (67.86%), via their family (26.88%) or
through apprenticeship or on-the-job training (3.54%).
Only a very small percentage (0.09%) has received any
formal training.
An analysis of informal sector workers’ education levels and
the different methods of skills acquisition shows that only
46.95% are literate (compared with the national average of
49.9% for the same period), that 42.74% have completed
primary education (compared with 46% at national level)
and that only 13.01% of male workers have been through
secondary education, compared with 31% at national level.
Table 9. Analysis of the level of education of informal sector workers by gender (in %)
Total workforce and share by gender Illiterate Intermittent Years Years Years Over 12 Total
school 1-6 7-8 9-12 illiterate
Men 32.50 5.03 16.45 13.48 13.01 0.71 67.50
Women 67.41 1.57 35.28 7.46 6.98 0.13 32.59
Total 53.05 2.99 24.19 9.46 9.46 0. 37 46.95
Source: Survey of the urban informal sector, 2003.
These figures show that the informal sector employs the
least educated men, and especially women, and that work-ers
with a higher level of education are more likely to be
able to find alternative employment to the informal sector.
They also show that only a very tiny number of workers
have taken part in TVET. It can be said therefore that, in
2003, TVET had almost no effect on the skills existing in the
informal sector.

A dominant and fast-growing informal sector
If the “informal unit” term used for urban areas is applied to
rural areas, it can be said that all of the jobs recorded in
2005 under the headings of self-employment, own-account
workers and unpaid family workers do, by analogy, come
under the informal sector. The percentage of informal work-ers
out of the total economically active population is thus
91.2%. This places Ethiopia alongside Cameroon, Benin
and Senegal as countries with a huge informal-type econo-my
employing at least 90% of the economically active pop-ulation.
This analysis is confirmed by the non-formal TVET
implementation framework programme drawn up by
German development aid agencies in co-operation with all
the Ethiopian authorities and training providers concerned.
It clearly indicates that the vast majority of employment
opportunities lie in the informal sector.32 The programme
also underlines that the creation and consolidation of
employment in Ethiopia cannot come from major public or
private companies, or from public administration, but nec-essarily
relies on the development of MSEs, especially in
the informal sector, and the promotion of viable forms of
self-employment. The statistical study on the informal sec-tor
also indicates that the informal economy is growing
rather than declining. According to the study, the economic
recession, structural adjustment policies, increasing urban-isation
and high population growth have led to the unantic-ipated
and unprecedented growth of the informal sector in
a number of developing countries. This is all the more so as
modern enterprises and especially public companies have
had to make workers redundant or make large cuts in
salaries. This partly explains the importance of the informal
sector in Ethiopia.
32 ECBP (Engineering Capacity Building Program) (2006), Non-formal TVET implementa-tion
framework, Building Ethiopia.

3. Vocational training reform geared to the economic and social
challenges
The TVET system is currently the focus of an in-depth strate-gic
rethinking and a reform intended to provide the Ethiopian
economy with the skills it needs in order to grow. This rethink-ing
and reform process is part and parcel of an overarching
policy entitled “Building Ethiopia”, which is being implement-ed
by the Ethiopian Government under the supervision of the
Ministry of Capacity Building and in partnership with the
Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Trade and Industry and
the private sector. The Engineering Capacity Building
Program (ECBP)33 is responsible for the policy’s overall
implementation. It is funded by the German Ministry of
Economic Co-operation and Development (BMZ), and oper-ates
with assistance from various German aid agencies
under the co-ordination of the largest such agency, the GTZ.
The purpose of the overall programme is to reform voca-tional
training and engineering courses. It is also designed
to introduce a national framework for qualifications and
standards, to develop the private sector and to encourage
it to contribute to the various types of action being taken.
The reform of the TVET system is a key component in the
programme. This reform, which is just getting under way, is
being implemented as part of the ECBP by the Ministry of
Education with technical assistance from German aid agen-cies,
in conjunction with local and regional authorities and
with the co-operation of all the economic and social part-ners
concerned.
3.1. Current state of TVET
According to the Ethiopian Ministry, technical and vocation-al
education and training comprises three main types of
training:
formal training schemes run by accredited public or pri-vate
vocational training centres and leading to recog-nised
technician-level certification;
“non-formal” training courses,34 which do not meet
recognised standards relating to content and the neces-sary
length of training in order to obtain certification.
They are delivered by public or private institutions such
as NGOs, community training centres, religious agen-cies
and private profit-making bodies. Non-formal train-ing
focuses primarily on helping people obtain employ-ment.
It is aimed at school leavers, school dropouts,
young and adult workers and groups excluded from the
labour market;
informal training, which refers to the acquisition of
knowledge and skills in a non-structured environment. It
consists primarily of on-the-job training that is not cur-rently
recognised or validated and traditional appren-ticeships
in MSEs, particularly in the craft sector.
33 As the term ECBP is commonly used in Ethiopia, it seems logical for this report to refer to
the Ethiopian capacity building programme in this way.
34 The definition of non-formal training given in the reference documents is taken from
CEDEFOP’s 2003 Glossary on Transparency and Validation of Non-Formal and Informal
Training. It defines non-formal training as “learning which is embedded in planned activi-ties
that are not explicitly designated as learning (in terms of objectives, time or support),
but which contain an important learning element. Non-formal learning is intentional from
the learner’s perspective.” The strategic and operational papers mentioned define the con-cept
of informal training along the same lines as CEDEFOP (learning resulting from every-day
activities related to work, family or leisure, which in most cases is unintentional from
the learner’s perspective), while incorporating it into the overarching concept of non-formal
training.

3. Vocational training reform geared to the economic and social challenges
Training is also available in the agricultural sector, but the
Ministry of Education is not responsible for it.
The following table outlines the structure of the formal
TVET system organised by the Ministry of Education.
In order to increase the availability of training for young
excluded people and school dropouts, over ten years ago,
the Government decided to expand the formal TVET sys-tem.
Thus the number of non-agricultural education and
training institutions rose from 17 to 199 between 1996/1997
and 2004/2005, and the number of pupils from 3,000 to
106,300,35 31% of whom are trained in private establish-ments.
In addition, approximately 42,000 young people
were enrolled in agricultural courses in 2004/2005.
However, notwithstanding the efforts made to extend TVET
in recent years, it caters for just 3% of the relevant age
group.
Table 10. The Education and TVET system in Ethiopia
Age
Grade
19 Higher Education
Diploma Level
Certificate Level II
Certificate Level I
Junior Level
TVET
Upper Secondary
School
General Secondary
Education
Primary Education
18
17
16
15
14
13
12
11
12
11
10
9
8
7
6
4
Source: Ethio-German TVET Programme (2003), The Ethiopian TVET Qualification System, Addis Ababa.
Basic Level
Vocational
Despite these investments, and although it is difficult to esti-mate
the number of Ethiopians with access to TVET,
demand still far exceeds supply and most of the population
does not have access to such training—particularly school
dropouts, the unemployed, company employees, the self-employed
and workers employed in MSEs. In addition, the
system has a number of obvious weaknesses. In recent
years, for instance, many employers have lamented the
poor quality of teaching, trainees’ lack of practical skills and
the unsuitability of training programmes. Moreover, it has
not been possible until now for people having acquired
vocational skills outside the formal TVET system (through
traditional apprenticeships, non-formal training, exercising
an occupation and so on) to obtain recognised certification,
resulting inter alia in a lack of labour market transparency.
35 According to ESDP (Education Sector Development Programme) III. The first ESDP pro-gramme
(ESDP I) was launched in 1997 as an integral part of the Civil Service Reform
Programme (CSRP). In fact, the purpose of the ESDP is to help the Ethiopian Government
harness the full range of national and international resources in order to enhance the qual-ity
and efficiency of the education system as a whole, and to report on the efforts made in
this area.

3.2. Towards a reform focusing on those concerned in the informal economy
The strategic thrust of the reform was defined as part of the
implementation of the PASDEP and in the context of the var-ious
national and sector-specific economic development
plans. The public authorities responsible for overseeing it
with technical assistance from German aid agencies have
the task of training a skilled, motivated and competent work
force. The aim is to develop the private sector and introduce
education and training schemes geared to demand and tai-lored
to the economic and social needs of the labour market,
particularly with a view to creating self-employment opportu-nities.
The current reform thus directly focuses on upgrading
the skills of those employed in the informal economy.
3.2.1. The main thrust of the reform
The main thrust of the reform may be described as follows:
broadly, it seeks to change the vocational training para-digm
by moving from a supply-driven approach to one
driven by demand and, more importantly, by the accred-itation
of existing skills, irrespective of how they have
been acquired;
by turning the system around, it will improve access to
training among people who are usually excluded (young
people and adults who have dropped out of school,
have a low level of education or are illiterate, entrepre-neurs
and workers in the formal and informal economy
who need to upgrade their skills and obtain recognised
qualifications, farmers and agricultural workers, unem-ployed
people seeking skills in order to enter the labour
market, and so on);
it is designed to gear training to MSEs, to encourage
training centres to concentrate on the informal econo-my’s
skills needs, to introduce incentives aimed at
encouraging business start-ups at local level and in par-ticular
linking the acquisition of skills to access to micro-credit
so as to create self-employment opportunities,
and, lastly, to enable the various training institutions to
develop training courses tailored to the needs of their
target groups.
At a more structural level, the current reform is intended to
ensure that non-formal training becomes an integral part
of the training system. This means that the new system
must explicitly define the objectives and content of such
training and specify operational procedures, and that all
the relevant partners must be involved in the planning,
management and assessment phases when it comes to
developing non-formal training provision. It also means
that the existing distinction between formal training lead-ing
to specific qualifications and non-formal training lead-ing
to unvalidated, unrecognised competencies and skills
must be abandoned. To this end, the reform proposes that
the entire training system be based on occupational stan-dards
as well as a single format for accrediting all different
types of courses. It also proposes that training be
assessed and certified on the basis of outcomes, that is,
the competencies actually acquired as a result of formal or
informal training and validated using a uniform certifica-tion
method and system.
Figure 1 shows how the reform makes the transition from
supply-driven training to demand-led training, notably tak-ing
account of labour market needs. These needs are
reflected in, and organised into occupational standards
serving as a basis for the design of training curricula and
various modes of formal, non-formal, workplace, on-the-job
training and self-learning. If the system is to be successful,
a quality-management approach should be adopted during
the labour market analysis to ensure this is used effective-ly
to draw up occupational standards, and to incorporate
various forms of training into a service geared to the skills
development needs of individuals and businesses. `
According to the strategic and operational reference docu-ments,
delivery of the reform clearly calls for an overhaul of
all existing training schemes so as to tailor them to the com-petencies
and skills needed by the market, particularly in
the micro- and small enterprise sector. These schemes also
require institutional changes in line with the objectives to be
achieved. In particular, all private and public, economic and
social, and national and local partners must be involved
both in developing new training content and modes of train-ing
and in managing the overall training, assessment and
certification system.

Figure 1. Outcome-based organisation of TVET system
Labour Markett
Occupational
Standards
Support to curriculum
development: curriculum
guides, model curricula, etc
Occupational
Quality
Management
Helping Hand
TVET
Delivery
Formal TVET
delivered by public
and non-public
providers, enterpris-es,
as cooperative
training, etc.
Long and short term
non-formal TVET
programmes
delivered by public
and non-public
providers, in
enterprises, etc.
Source: Ministry of Education diagram, Draft Revised Strategy, 2006.
3.2.2. The reform implementation process
Various strategic papers published since 2002 have gradu-ally
refined the reform process to be implemented, and out-lined
the main thrust of an operational scenario now being
developed. Various initial tangible outcomes were identified
during the field survey.
The decision to adopt a uniform approach to the reform
Various ministries are currently involved in Ethiopia’s TVET
sector on account of the institutions they are in charge of:
the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Agriculture, the
Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Trade and Industry and
the Ministry of Labour. The paper setting out the “National
Technical and Vocational Education and Training
Strategy”,36 the latest version of which has recently been
completed (in September 2006), has the distinctive feature
of covering all forms of technical and vocational training,
apart from higher education, irrespective of which particular
ministry they come under. The application of this across-the-
board strategy to all forms of training is innovative in
that it unites all the partners around a common vision of
regulated by
TVET authorities
(with
participation of
stakeholders)
Testing/
Certification
Informal TVET, i.e.
on the job-training,
self-learning,
traditional
apprenticeship and
all other modes of
TVET
what needs to be done in order for Ethiopia to ensure a
more competent and skilled work force, thereby improving
its chances of development and economic growth. Previous
field surveys carried out as part of the study on “Vocational
Training in the Informal Sector”, particularly the one on
Benin, showed that without such a common vision none of
the reforms instituted had any chance of being completed
within a reasonable timeframe. The field survey demon-strated
that such a common vision exists in Ethiopia as
regards the broad thrust of reform, but not necessarily in
relation to the specific means of delivery.
The issue of consultative or deliberative management of
the reform process
The strategy paper calls for a wide range of stakeholders at
all levels to be involved in implementing the different com-ponents
and phases of the reform process.
36 ECBP (2006), op.cit.

The public authorities have opted for the greatest possible
representation of stakeholders. The partners normally
involved in consultation forums in other countries (min-istries,
employers, trade unions and sector bodies) are
included, but so are representatives of teachers, parents,
local authorities, the beneficiaries and leading national
communication agencies. As a result, some of the organi-sations
met with during the survey, particularly employers’
organisations and trade unions, feel that their voices cannot
be heard properly. The key consultation forums identified in
the strategic paper are the national and regional commit-tees
responsible for helping the authorities introduce the
reform according to the main guidelines set. A number of
those met mentioned the current debate over the proper
nature of these committees: will they continue to serve as
mere forums for expression and information sharing, or will
they, as many seem to hope, be given genuine decision-making
authority? It appears that employers, who have
trouble finding the time and motivation to take part in these
committees, will play an active role in them only if their func-tion
is deliberative rather than purely consultative.
The crucial need for a uniform approach to reorganising
demand, supply and certification
The fact that the reform focuses on outcomes (i.e. the com-petencies
acquired and certified) has led to a complete
overhaul of the training system by means of a process
divided into interlinked phases in terms of both methodolo-gy
and timeframe. This process may be described as fol-lows:
analysis of the labour market and business demands
culminates in the setting of occupational benchmarks
standardised at national level;
these benchmarks, which identify the competencies to
be developed, serve as standards for the development
of training curricula and quality management of the var-ious
training mechanisms (formal, non-formal and infor-mal)
introduced;
both training outcomes and competencies acquired on
the job are assessed and certified in relation to the stan-dardised
occupational benchmarks;
assessment and certification give access to recognised
national qualifications, which are identical regardless of
how they are gained (through training or the validation
of competencies acquired on the job).37
The reform project sets out procedures for implementing
each of these phases. For instance, the task of analysing
demand is described as being the joint responsibility of
training centres and employers. The federal authorities are
responsible for setting occupational benchmarks, although
employers and trade unions must also be consulted and
actively involved, and contributions must be sought from
experts who are knowledgeable about the world of work.
Curriculum development is assigned to experts within train-ing
centres, whose sole obligation is to produce modular
courses leading to the outcomes identified by the corre-sponding
benchmarks.38 Assessment and certification, car-ried
out on an independent basis at the Centres of
Competence still to be set up, undoubtedly form the cen-trepiece
of the entire reform. By assessing competencies
rather than the knowledge acquired during training courses,
the system as a whole can focus on the new target groups:
as well as graduates of formal and non-formal training
schemes, these include apprentices, workers trained on the
job and, by extension, those employed in the informal sec-tor,
many of whom have no educational qualifications other
than proven occupational know-how.
The field survey was able to verify that the reform imple-mentation
scenario was not merely hypothetical, but had
actually begun to take shape, particularly in the construc-tion
sector, which is regarded as a priority. Some bench-marks
for occupations in areas such as structural work, fin-ishing
work and interior fittings have been finalised.39 While
the curricula for these benchmarks are not yet finished, they
are at least in the process of being completed. The experts
37 The “Engineering Capacity Building Program, National Training Qualification Framework”
paper gives a very clear picture of the overall qualification framework on which the current
reform is based. As well as outlining the process of moving from labour-market analysis to
certification by means of occupational benchmarks and assessment of the competencies
acquired, it explains the different qualification levels: basic level, junior level, intermediate
levels I and II (leading to certificates) and intermediate level (leading to a diploma). It
shows that the qualification framework does not go beyond the recognition of technician-level
diplomas, to use the terminology employed by the European Union.
38 Although training centres are responsible for curriculum development, they receive initial
assistance from the Ministry of Education. It sends them “model curricula” developed at the
central level, which they can adopt and/or adapt according to their own situation and
needs.
39 According to the PASDEP, more than 50 occupational benchmarks had been set by the
end of 2005.

responsible for testing and certifying them have received
methodological training. All that remains is to set up the
Centres of Competence at Entoto College in Addis Ababa.
The centre’s development plan has been finalised, and
methodologically speaking everything is in place. The cen-tre
is not yet operational however, and some of the people
we talked to expressed their impatience in this respect. In
total, five or six Centres of Competence are to be set up
throughout the country.
The difficulty of developing dual-type training and/or
apprenticeships
The TVET system currently includes a form of training
known as “apprenticeship”. It involves young people in
grades 10+1, 10+2 and 10+3, that is, young people taking
formal technical and vocational courses. It operates as fol-lows:
young people spend 70% of the school year, or 9
months, being trained at the centre;
for the remaining 30% of the year, they are placed in
firms. The firms are usually identified and selected by
the training centre or college within its immediate eco-nomic
environment. They are generally small or medi-um-
sized enterprises forming part of the local economic
fabric.
In educational terms, work placements count for 22% of the
overall assessment for the year. A number of those we
spoke to told us that such placements are simply a form of
work experience. According to the head of the Education
Office in Addis Ababa, there are institutions that train busi-ness
executives to become genuine apprenticeship mas-ters
and thus to supervise young people on internships.
Some of those institutions (including the college we visited
in Dire Dawa) have stopped offering this type of training.
The field survey found that this type of apprenticeship
raised a number of problems in practice. Firstly, this is an
inappropriate description in that it refers to the experience
of working in a firm rather than a form of training alternating
between theory and practice: in this sense, the word “intern-ship”
would be far more appropriate than “apprenticeship”.
Secondly, no reference is made to any kind of contractual
relationship between employer and trainee, and the young
person continues to be regarded as a school pupil through-out
his or her time in the firm. Moreover, colleges have real
difficulty placing young people in firms and/or finding intern-ships
matching the technological and vocational content
covered by the school syllabus.
The reform of the TVET system includes the design and
implementation of co-operative training courses.40 In prac-tice,
the initial aim is to introduce a pilot dual training
scheme in partnership with major Ethiopian public and pri-vate
enterprises. The enterprises participating in the project
will select the young trainees according to the skills they
need. However, the plan is also for these enterprises to
take partial responsibility for training young people who
may be hired by enterprises not involved in the pilot phase
or who start their own businesses. The TVET centres par-ticipating
in the scheme will have to bring both their teach-ing
quality and technological investment into line with the
needs of enterprises.
The project currently being launched provides for the subse-quent
extension of the pilot scheme to MSEs and, in particu-lar,
production and service units in the informal sector and co-operatives
and training centres in rural areas. The document
says that this second phase is particularly important because
of the predominance of MSEs in the Ethiopian economy, the
current reform’s key requirement to open the TVET system to
a wide range of target groups, and the Government’s goal of
significantly increasing the number of people trained in the
vocational education and training system.
It is unlikely that successful co-operative training in large,
modern enterprises can be extended to the informal sector
as it stands. At present, the reform plan does not provide for
a significant investment in training for adult workers in
MSEs, let alone in training for the heads of such enterpris-es
to become “apprenticeship masters”, albeit only for
those young people under their responsibility within the tra-ditional
apprenticeship system. A comparison with the other
countries surveyed shows that such investment is the only
way to motivate professionals to take on young trainees
40 ECBP (August 2006), Co-operative Training and Enterprise Training.

and involve them in an effective learning process. Training
young people without giving adults already in work (many of
whom are under-educated) the means to upgrade their own
skills and thus to develop their careers engenders—as
craftworkers in Benin put it—a sense of fear among adults
vis-à-vis the growing influence of young people with greater
skills, which can but be detrimental to the smooth develop-ment
of on-the-job training.
Figure 2. The phases of the reforms process
Source: Richard Walther.
3.2.3. The challenges of reform: moving from an
institutional to a grassroots approach
All the strategic and operational papers setting out and
organising the different phases and key points in the reform
process promise that the system will be opened up to those
currently excluded from it, and that efforts will be made to
involve its future beneficiaries. While target groups in the
informal sector are seen for their true worth, with an accu-rate
assessment of their situation, they are regarded as
potential individual beneficiaries rather than possible asso-ciations
set up to deal with economic, occupational or
industrial processes.
The various field surveys show that the institutional mind-set
of vocational training practitioners when it comes to
approaching people working in the informal sector is unlike-ly
to motivate the latter unless representative associations
are involved, be these territorial, vocational or sectoral or
simply NGOs. The field survey in Ethiopia was unable to
identify any highly structured organisations of informal
workers. However, steps are already being taken to form
groupings of stakeholders (which are mandatory in some
cases, particularly as a prerequisite for obtaining micro-credit),
networks of businesswomen, local, regional and
national agencies for MSEs, sectoral associations linked to
chambers of commerce and so on. A 2003 Ministry of Trade
and Industry directive41 lists several dozen sectoral associ-ations,
many of which are active in the informal sector. The
directive has the distinctive feature, however, of attempting
to organise and regulate—at the local, regional and nation-al
level and in conjunction with chambers of commerce—
organisations that exist first and foremost to represent
workers at the grassroots level.
In the light of a comparative analysis of training policies and
practices in the informal sector in the various countries sur-veyed,
it appears that the current TVET reform will be more
effective and relevant if it is not confined to an excessively
institutional approach, but brings on board all the collectives
and associations represented in the non-structured econo-my.
This means that the reform’s proponents must pay
greater attention to the processes already at work in the
informal sector and use them to underpin their efforts to
enable the sector’s many workers to upgrade their skills.
41 A Directive Issued to implement Proclamation No. 341/2002 of Chamber of Commerce
and Sectoral Associations Council.

4. Current training initiatives in the informal sector
Although it was easy to obtain all available information on
training provided in formal establishments and on the broad
outlines of current TVET reform, it was difficult to find out
about training in the informal economy. There are several
reasons for this: the information was scattered; few people
work in this area; there is little communication among the
various public and private agencies involved, and, although
the matter is considered important, it is not a priority.
The field survey did, however, identify a number of
schemes and operators in the field. It was not always pos-sible
to obtain full information or meet the people best
placed to report on what has been done, but the information
gathered provides the broad outlines of current training ini-tiatives
in the sector.
4.1. The reality of traditional apprenticeship – a difficult issue
The Non-Formal TVET Implementation paper published
recently as part of the Capacity Building Programme men-tions
traditional apprenticeship in the MSE sector.
According to this document, this sector includes employers
or very often master craftsmen owning small enterprises in
the crafts, services, repairs, transport or trade sectors. The
latter make partial or full use of family members as unqual-ified
workers or apprentices.42
Despite this formal statement about the existence of tradi-tional
apprenticeship, the field survey revealed little to con-firm
the reality of its existence. Some people said that, in
the light of the situation in Sub-Saharan countries, there
was actually no traditional system established in crafts or
services. Others said that there was only the school
apprenticeship scheme offered in training establishments,
involving work placements in businesses rather than the
implementation of a well-balanced combination of class-room-
based training and work experience. Others said that
the term “apprenticeship” referred to the plans for designing
and developing co-operative or dual-type training in associ-ation
with the largest and/or best performing enterprises in
the country. Lastly, the meeting with an official from the
Ministry of Employment and Social Affairs made it possible
to make a rapid appraisal of the training scheme for which
it is responsible. The major features are as follows:
in Ethiopia, as in West African countries, skills are large-ly
acquired within the family or neighbourhood. On this
subject, it is worth noting that only 3% of young people
go through the TVET system and that only 25% of pupils
who complete primary education go on to secondary
school. A 1999 survey recorded 12,100 apprentices
while a 2005 survey recorded 85,622, of whom 26%
were in the crafts production sector (such as woodwork,
weaving, sewing and so on), the remainder being in the
services sector;43
traditional apprenticeship is not an organised process:
there is no curriculum, no training premises, no qualified
trainers and no structured progression;
the main fields concerned are motor mechanics, main-tenance
and crafts.
42 ECPB (July 2006), Non-Formal TVET Implementation Framework.
43 This data was obtained from the Ministry of Employment and Social Affairs. The 2005 sur-vey
on employment and the active population indicates that apprentices represent 0.3% of
the 31,435,108 people in work, namely a total of 94,305 apprentices. It also indicates that
50.3% of employees are unpaid family members. Although such employees are not
apprentices, it is clear that they learned their trade as they went along, since only a tiny
number undertook vocational training. Since the Ministry has no clear picture of the reali-ty
of what happens, it wishes to carry out a major study to establish the facts.

Legislation stipulates that an apprentice should have a con-tract
with a master craftsman or an establishment and work
under specified hygiene and safety conditions and in
defined trades. It further stipulates that the curriculum
should be determined in association with the Ministry of
Education and that the apprenticeship should be of defined
length, but does not fix any time limit. However, due to lack
of means, the Ministry of Employment and Social Affairs
fails to apply the legislation as it should. While inspectors
visit workshops to check whether master craftsmen are
complying with ILO apprenticeship safety rules, they pro-vide
more in the way of advice and assistance than enforc-ing
the regulations.
4.2. Public policies targeting the creation of micro activities
The public authorities and more particularly the Ministry of
Commerce and Industry have national and regional
schemes targeted specifically at MSEs.44 The national
scheme, entitled FEMSEDA (Federal Micro and Small
Enterprises Development Agency), was set up in the time of
the Emperor of Ethiopia to train poor children who had no
other access to education and training. The regional
schemes, entitled REMSEDA (Regional Micro and Small
Enterprises Development Agencies), are currently being set
up by FEMSEDA, and also by regional offices of the
Ministry for Capacity Building. According to information
gathered during the survey, REMSEDAs were to be set up
in the Tigray and Harar regions. Work in the field included
lengthy contact with the Dire Dawa regional agency, the first
at national level to take any really serious action.
The Plan for Accelerated and Sustained Development to
End Poverty (PASDEP 2005/2006-2009/2010), which
reports on action carried out in the MSE sector throughout
the country, gives an overall picture of action undertaken by
the various agencies responsible for MSE development. It
firstly indicates that such enterprises play a very important
economic role, to the extent that they use people who are
largely underemployed in the agricultural sector and enable
families to diversify their sources of income. Secondly, the
document lists sectors with high job-creation potential:
domestic livestock rearing, poultry rearing, silk harvesting,
bee-keeping, clothes-making, metal-working, construction
and fast-growing intra-urban services such as waste collec-tion,
car park caretaking, small retail and various repair
services. Lastly, it provides detailed figures on the
scheme’s results, indicating that 96,000 MSEs were given
a boost at national level and 280,000 jobs were created.
The activities undertaken by FEMSEDA and the Dire Dawa
REMSEDA form part of this overall approach, while at Addis
Ababa level, the ILO initiative aimed at training profession-al
weavers in order to improve their ability to access the
international market is based largely on co-operation with
FEMSEDA.
4.2.1. FEMSEDA entrepreneur training
FEMSEDA is a public body attached to the Ministry of
Commerce and Industry. It is organised into three depart-ments:
quality, planning and training/skills development. Its
role is to assist MSEs in meeting their training needs. It also
operates in the clothes-making, woodworking, textiles, pot-tery,
tapestry, weaving sectors, etc.
The agency runs an annual training programme from
October to March and from March to August. It works in
technical areas and also in management and finance. It
runs technical four or five month training sessions in sectors
such as clothes-making, metal and wood-working, three-month
training sessions in clothes-making and, at the
request of investors wanting to reach international markets,
one-month training sessions in weaving. 85% of skills
acquisition takes place on the job and 15% is acquired in
classroom sessions. FEMSEDA actually has its own prem-ises
in Addis Ababa, which enables it to provide training in
suitably equipped workshops offering appropriate tech-niques
for each specialist activity.
44 A “micro-enterprise” is an enterprise with an annual turnover of less than 20,000 birrs
(1,800 euros), and a small enterprise is a unit with a turnover of less than 500,000 birrs
(45,000 euros).

Training is aimed at the informal, essentially crafts, sector.
People can undertake the various training sessions without
having any specific level of skills, with the exception of
some, such as tapestry, wood-working and so on, which
require level 10, which is in fact TVET Grade 1.
Often, trainers in TVET centres or establishments do not
have the practical capabilities required for organising train-ing
schemes targeted at people in the informal sector. This
means that, during the holidays, some of them attend train-ing
sessions held in FEMSEDA premises.
The agency runs training to help MSEs improve the way
they launch or manage their business. It uses a training
package for literate people, which has been designed and
produced by ILO. For illiterate people, it uses a World Bank
aid that is practical and very visual in design. It offers train-ing
in creating and managing work. In each technical
course, it also includes an introduction to management and
entrepreneurship. All training sessions form part of an
annual training plan. The 2006 plan relating to MSE man-agement
provides a clear picture of the means implement-ed
by FEMSEDA to launch and stimulate the informal sec-tor.
Training plan objectives
to help individuals wishing to set up their own MSE to
acquire the basic notions of economics;
to enable them to acquire the skills they need in order to
launch a profitable and successful business;
to promote effective and high quality production and
service units in their field of activity.
Courses offered
Courses organised at federal level come under the general
title: “Develop a skills-based economic activity through
business creation.” They aim to encourage participants to
be self-critical, adopt an entrepreneurial approach and
develop the ability to set up their own business. They are
divided into three main types of training:
Starting Your Own Business. Training is intended to
encourage informal economy workers to adopt an entre-preneurial
attitude so that they know how to set up a
business, obtain the necessary start-up capital, draw up
a financial plan, prepare a marketing plan, hire staff,
produce and sell and, lastly, develop the business suc-cessfully;
Improving Your Business. The aim of the course is to
help those who already have an established business to
improve and modernise their management practices by
developing their skills in the areas of market access,
purchasing, stock control, financial and accounts man-agement
and business planning;
Acquiring Basic Economic Skills. Following the example
of what is offered in South Africa, the idea is to develop
entrepreneurial attitudes and provide training in the fun-damental
concepts of entrepreneurship, in order to
enable participants to distinguish clearly between fami-ly
and professional activities, to encourage them to
keep a cash book and to acquire basic business plan-ning
skills.
All courses are based on active learning methods specifi-cally
tailored to the needs of the people to be trained. They
include discussion groups, role-playing, case studies, site
visits, films and the analysis of good practice.
These courses are aimed more particularly at people who
want to launch or improve their business and, to this end,
wish to develop their technical and managerial skills. Each
course lasts five days and may be delivered as a one-week
training package or as ten half-days of training.
Fees are payable for all courses, except for those with min-isterial
exemptions and those targeting strategic sectors
such as clothes-making. The cost is 137 birrs per person,
or 12 euros,45 when delivered on agency premises, and 86
birrs, or 7.8 euros, when delivered off premises. When
courses are run outside Addis Ababa, the cost is 127 birrs,
or 11.5 euros.
In 2005, the agency trained 800 people from the informal
sector, including 500 in clothes-making, 150 in design and
120 in the metal-working, wood-working and silk sectors. All
of the people trained were selected for their ability to cas-
45 Exchange rate at 4 October, 2006.

cade what they learned to other members of their local
association or co-operative.
4.2.2. The Dire Dawa REMSEDA’s integration
and support role
The Dire Dawa REMSEDA has been in existence for two
years. The agency is really the institutional partner in an
economic development project that already existed in the
region. It currently comprises a planning and programming
department and a research and development department,
which are in turn subdivided into a piloting and support
service and an MSE development training and promotion
service. Other services are to be added, including a spe-cialised
service to support those developing income-gener-ating
activities, and an information and advice service to
assist trained people in accessing the job market. At pres-ent,
REMSEDA employs ten staff, soon to be supplement-ed
by a number of experts specialising in the fields in which
the agency is involved. The Dire Dawa REMSEDA is in fact
the first operational regional agency. Consequently, people
are always asking to visit it, and it often serves as an exam-ple
to other agencies that are in the course of being set up.
Strategic intervention areas
The agency focuses its work on sectors forming part of the
region’s economic strategy and which make a significant
contribution to GDP, such as property development, public
works (including road-building), food, textiles, arboriculture,
etc. The agency works on the principle that there is a mar-ket
for all of these activities. Construction is one of the
areas in which the agency has invested most, particularly
as the Government itself has issued calls for tenders in the
above-mentioned areas of roads and property, and also in
local agency creation and the building of schools, training
centres and rural development centres.
Local councillors, administrators and the various officials
concerned, including those involved in education and voca-tional
training, meet on a monthly basis. These regional
steering groups enable the agency to intervene according
to local development priorities and to play an effective role
in integrating the working population of the informal sector
into the job market.
The model for empowering people to find work
REMSEDA runs a scheme that enables unemployed and
unoccupied people to come together into groupings in order
to work on public interest projects, before gradually devel-oping
such projects into profitable activities. The scheme
can be described as follows:
thanks to its fortunate public circumstances (financial
resources and the availability of land to establish busi-ness
parks), REMSEDA acts as an economic develop-ment
and job agency. It supports the creation of associ-ations
and co-operatives of young people and adults
(with a maximum of 15 members) as part of works com-missioned
by public authorities or forming part of the
regional development plan. It helps these associations
and co-operatives to set up production and services
units on the public land made available. It sets up infor-mation
and financial support offices as close to its busi-ness
parks as possible, so as to give the groupings eas-ier
access to public and private market opportunities.
REMSEDA has thus enabled its members to bid for the
construction of universities and enterprises, hospital
catering services or the delivery of traditional food to
local authorities. To date, REMSEDA has facilitated the
creation of 220 co-operatives or associations, including
63 in construction, 43 in food processing, 40 in metal-working,
25 in waste disposal, 11 in clothes-making, 6 in
wood-working, 5 in urban agriculture and so on;
REMSEDA helps to consolidate the work of associa-tions
and co-operatives at a professional and financial
level. It makes technical, financial and management
training run by the Dire Dawa TVET College available to
members of groupings. It helps them to obtain loans
from micro-credit organisations by giving them assis-tance
in drawing up their development plan. To date,
over 2,500 groupings have benefited from loans of up to
20,000 birrs (about 1,800 euros).46 It provides machin-ery
suited to their professional needs and compliant
with technical standards, and advises them throughout
the business development process;
46 Recently the Government decided to guarantee loans from micro credit organisations (to
the tune of 212 million birrs, which is about 19 million euros). This will make it possible to
provide MSEs with loans of 50,000 to 100,000 birrs (about 9,000 euros).

lastly, REMSEDA promotes structured co-operation
between MSEs. It helps enterprises to organise trade
fairs that enable them to compete with private industry
products, to sell goods and to position their products to
meet export market demand. The agency invited
Djiboutian entrepreneurs to fairs that it organised so
that they could help Dire Dawa MSEs to evaluate the
quality of their products in the face of international com-petition.
REMSEDA also helped to bring together exist-ing
groupings in order to create sector associations. It
set up a production and service unit forum with a view
to transferring the responsibility for the creation of such
associations to members of the forum. The idea is that
forum members analyse opportunities for creating larg-er
groupings, express their joint training needs and, if
possible, respond jointly to invitations to tender.
Training activities organised
There have been many of these and they have improved
technical skills in all sectors: construction (1,012 people),
metal- and wood-working (682 people), sewing and textiles
(444 people), urban agriculture (430 people), food process-ing
(411 people), and so on. Training also addressed man-agement
and entrepreneurial skills (4,387 people). Over a
period of two years, a total of 12,935 of the working popu-lation
in the informal sector have received training. It is dif-ficult
to evaluate the impact of such training, especially
since it forms part of overall measures to achieve progres-sive
integration into jobs and stable employment. But the
fact that during the same period, 13,056 people found per-manent
or temporary employment demonstrates that such
training is at the very least an effective support in the over-all
process of entry into the world of work.
An example of job creation: cutting cobblestones for
paving roads
The field survey visited several sites, including one where
cobblestones were being prepared for building or repairing
Dire Dawa’s roads and pavements. This site has the fol-lowing
features:
it encompasses all manufacturing stages of the final
product (a 10cm-sided cobblestone), including the quar-riers
(from outside the Dire Dawa region), the lorry driv-ers
bringing the stone to town, the various stone-cutters
who rough-hew the stone, break it into semi-finished
and then finished blocks and those who lay the cobble-stones
to make the roads and pavements. (This is a
long and complicated process requiring project-type
organisation that manages each stage from the original
product to the final stages of hewing and laying. It can
be successfully completed only through effective man-agement
of the various stages involved in production,
from the very start to the finished product);
it operates as a commercial organisation to the extent
that the producers involved in each stage are set up as
profit-making companies, buy a product at a certain
stage of production, work on it in accordance with pre-determined
standards and then sell it after having cal-culated
the added value and the profit to be distributed
to each stone-cutter and layer. The work site assumes
de facto that there are a series of commercial compa-nies
demanding both management and financial skills
from members;
from the discussions held, it emerged that the scheme
has a significant effect on those involved. It enables
them to acquire skills (quarrying, stonecutting and lay-ing);
it makes them comply with standards and dead-lines,
and lastly, it encourages them to manage their
part of the work in accordance with precise and clear
financial and accounting rules. So it includes both
apprenticeship in a trade and apprenticeship in the
basic concepts of business management.
The young people interviewed showed an in-depth knowl-edge
of the entire process of production and marketing and
confirmed that it was a valuable learning experience.
Several were motivated to organise themselves further, and
were able to develop their work into other areas and func-tions.
There is no doubt that the Dire Dawa REMSEDA scheme,
spanning the creation of associations and co-operatives
promoting integration into the world of work through to their
consolidation into micro- and small production and service
enterprises, serves as model for development aid. It com-bines
public intervention with job creation, promotes social
and vocational integration and the acquisition of financial

and entrepreneurial independence, and, finally, helps sup-port
activities and the creation of enterprises capable of
developing in such a way as to help lift people out of pover-ty.
The field survey was to have highlighted the training activi-ties
benefiting Addis Ababa MSEs. However, as the person
responsible was absent at the time of the interview, this was
not possible. According to the experts met, there would
seem to be some training aimed at job creation, in particu-lar
for young people in the capital, with these youngsters
undertaking to cascade what they learn to members of their
association or co-operative.
4.2.3. The Addis Ababa weavers’ training pro-ject
(ILO)
As part of the survey, the meeting with the ILO established
a close concurrence of opinion between the aims of the
study on training in the informal sector and the ILO’s poli-cies
in the field. Thus the “Resolution concerning decent
work and the informal economy” passed at the 90th session
of the ILO’s general meeting emphasised that “many peo-ple
working in the informal economy have real business
acumen, creativity, dynamism and innovation and such
potential could flourish if certain obstacles were removed.”
Similarly, an internal document on how to raise the level of
the informal economy47 emphasises that any such efforts
cannot happen without raising the skills level of workers in
the informal economy.
The meeting also provided an opportunity to learn about the
means which the ILO was making available to Ethiopians
working in the weaving sector.
Project objectives: accessing the international market
The project formed part of a co-operative arrangement
between the ILO and the Ethiopian Government within the
national programme for promoting decent jobs. Given that
the programme aimed to promote sustainable development
and reduce poverty, the ILO identified cotton, textiles and
more broadly clothes-making as priority sectors, following
the end of the 1974 multi-fibre agreement. Specific studies
had in fact demonstrated the benefits of incorporating this
sub-sector into the national value chain48 and identified that
this integration required improved technical skills in weav-ing
and in management capabilities as a pre-requisite for
greater market access and increased financing.
In concrete terms, the aim of the current project is to train
weaving MSEs with a view to enabling them to achieve the
following objectives:
gain access to improved means of finance;
acquire suitable premises and new-generation looms;
open production to the international market by exploiting
new niches in the national market;
improve working conditions;
update products and the production process.
Project stages: training at all skill levels
The project aims to train sector workers at various levels.
Basic level: acquisition of elementary weaving skills.
This training is for people who want to work in the weav-ing
trade but who have not had the opportunity to learn
the skills through traditional apprenticeship schemes.
Intermediate level: improving existing skills. For people
who already work in the weaving trade, this is designed
to give them the ability to produce goods of the neces-sary
quality and quantity required by the international
market. This training lies at the heart of the project, to
the extent that its purpose is to integrate home workers
into standardised production processes at global level
and to make them able to respond to the specifications
of international buyers.
Specialised level: training in the design of new products.
There is no doubt that the Ethiopian weaving and
clothes-making sector will not be able to develop unless
it produces clothes that conform to the demands of
international fashion, which requires the radical updat-ing
of existing products and usual production methods.
This training is aimed at a limited number of designers
47 The document aims to define routes for the gradual formalisation of the informal economy
and sets as an objective for the next ten years the elimination of all legislative, economic
and administrative factors that foster the existence of the informal economy.
48 In the internal project presentation document (Technical Cooperation Summary Project
Outline), the ILO defines the value chain as all the activities required for creating a prod-uct
or service from its design to delivery. It stresses that the challenge in this particular
case is to improve the competitiveness and effectiveness of the entire value chain, with the
aim of supporting jobs creation and boosting economic growth.

and clothes-makers who will act as the link with interna-tional
market aspirations and specialise in the ranges
demanded by this market.
Specialised level: training in the design of new woven
products. This is to train clothes-makers to produce the
new ranges created by the designers, in accordance
with standards, and to adopt the new weaving and
clothes-making techniques demanded by this market.
The purpose of these various training courses is not to
replace existing training but to support what already exists
by complementing and improving it. They will be run in
association with FEMSEDA, the priority being to support
both enterprises and private providers, in particular NGOs.
It is all about using training to foster the growth of sustain-able
production capable of providing jobs, while at the same
time accessing international market outlets.
Fees will be payable for the training, although the ILO pro-vides
financial support, particularly in the acquisition of
basic skills, to people who cannot afford their training.
Expected results: integration of the informal economy into
a buoyant market
The overall aim of the project is to encourage job creation
in the informal sector, refocus public and especially private
training on demand and on the issues facing the weaving
and clothes-making sector, facilitate access for all enter-prises
to invitations to tender and market opportunities, and
develop a favourable legislative and administrative environ-ment
in the informal sector for creating decent jobs.
More concretely, it aims to achieve the following results:
evaluate the training currently available in Addis Ababa
in the field of basic skills and, depending on the gaps
identified, improve the content, the training of trainers
and apprenticeship methods;
carry out a similar evaluation at intermediate level, in
design training and in the use of new techniques, and
create and test, where necessary and in association
with professionals in the sector, curricula and training
methods appropriate to the objectives set and the meth-ods
of certification required.
The overall project proposes to run dual-type training and
entails major educational work on vocational apprentice-ships
and on upgrading host enterprises with regard to the
quality and production standards demanded by internation-al
competition. This means that the project will succeed
only if all the partners involved (sector professionals, train-ing
providers, exporters, weaving, clothes-making and
design technology experts, and so on) work together for the
success of the operation.
The current project has the great advantage of combining
elements likely to stimulate training in the informal sector:
intervention targeted specifically at people in MSEs, skills
development linked to the production of goods and servic-es
complying with international standards, the involvement
of professionals and training providers in the process of
skills development and, lastly, a sustainable development
project that will gradually equip MSEs in the informal sector
with recognised skills and a real capacity to access nation-al
and international markets.
All these elements suggest that it will be worthwhile and
indeed important to evaluate the results obtained as the
project progresses. This will provide matter for reflection
and analysis regarding the contribution training can make to
the economic success of the informal sector.
4.2.4. On-site training for MSEs in the building
sector (GTZ)
Germany, or more precisely the GTZ, assumed project
ownership of the construction by the Ethiopian Government
of the university of Dire Dawa. The university is to admit its
first students in autumn 2006 and, when completed, will
have the capacity to accept about 10,000 students. A fea-ture
of the site is that it is a sort of “on-site school” for many
MSE sub-contractors involved and for young people from
TVET colleges who are on vocational placement there.
Training combined with on-site experience
Every day, employees of small enterprises working on the
building site receive training given at the end of the day by
the German person in charge. This trainer is specifically
charged with raising skill levels among the many MSEs
involved, with the support of an Ethiopian manager who

acts as interpreter when necessary, and ensures that
everyone understands the information conveyed. The train-er
starts from the work done every day, takes concrete
examples from the moulding and drying of bricks, the pour-ing
of concrete screed or the erection of partitions or walls.
From such working situations, he goes back over measure-ment-
taking, shuttering techniques, new concrete finishing
standards and, using these examples, he tries to gradually
improve the quality of the work and the techniques used.
The entire process of alternating between theory and prac-tical
application is in keeping with the experience of build-ing
construction. The various training sessions give rise to
evaluations and, in the end, are incorporated into a certified
training curriculum. Workers trained in this way can improve
their vocational qualifications while working on the job, and
they emerge finally with a higher level of vocational skills.
The difficult link between training, cultural tradition and
innovation
The site visit enabled discussion with the project owners on
the limits of this training initiative as a form of apprentice-ship
in modern construction techniques. One of the prob-lems
encountered is the resistance of the enterprises on
site to the application of present day construction proce-dures.
This resistance concerns the concrete shuttering
and is evidenced by the workers’ refusal to discontinue the
widespread Ethiopian practice of using oil to obtain smooth
concrete (using it means that paint cannot be applied direct-ly
to the surfaces underneath the shuttering) and of scratch-ing
the surfaces with a view to applying a roughcast onto
which the paint will be applied. It also concerns shuttering
techniques (single-use wooden shuttering, as opposed to
reusable shuttering) and the transportation of cement or
mortar (strong resistance to using wheelbarrows instead of
traditional carrying methods).
The reasons for keeping to tradition at all costs are low-budget
contracts that do not specify technical constraints,
but perhaps, at an even deeper level, there is the weight of
tradition: “we’ve always done it like that, so why change
something that works?” This poses the problem not only of
the relationship between training, tradition and technologi-cal
innovation, but also of how to implement the means and
methodologies for acquiring skills that integrate resistance
to cultural change as an inevitable dimension in the qualifi-cation
process. Whatever the answers to these problems,
the solutions cannot ignore the fact that training on its own
cannot overcome the resistance to change and that specif-ic
approaches to taking innovation on board in a cultural
context have to be designed and implemented.
The field survey’s pinpointing of the actions taken to bene-fit
informal MSEs is inevitably limited. It suffices, however,
to highlight the importance given by the federal and region-al
authorities (FEMSEDA and REMSEDA) and internation-al
organisations (ILO and GTZ) to developing such enter-prises.
They are actually alone in being able to integrate
very many young people and adults into the world of work
and, more fundamental still, to foster the dynamics of effec-tive
local development. The examples recorded demon-strate
that well-structured integration and training can lead
to job creation and stable employment and thus help the
population to rise above mere survival level and give hope
for a standard of living that is above the poverty threshold.
They also emphasise the fact that there are buoyant sec-tors
in which job creation and employment can go beyond
the local market and access production and service levels
suited to the national and international markets. But this is
possible only on the condition (achieved by the Dire Dawa
region) that support for income-generating job creation and
the fight against poverty is incorporated into a sustainable
economic and social growth strategy and, in the medium
term, clearly defined together with all the stakeholders
involved.

4.3. The strategic role of women in the informal sector
The field study made it possible to widen the scope of the
initiatives launched in the informal sector to include training
and start-up activities promoted by women’s associations.
There is no doubt that Ethiopian women’s associations play
a significant role in the informal sector. This has been evi-denced
by PASDEP, which stresses not only the strategic
role women play in the development of the country, but also
the need to improve labour market access for women in
order to achieve this development. The initiatives are all
funded or supported by donors and international develop-ment
aid and support agencies.
4.3.1. The ILO survey and the profile of women
entrepreneurs
The ILO study (2003) entitled “Ethiopian Women
Entrepreneurs: Going for Growth” also showed women’s
positive impact on development in the country. From the
sample studied, it found that 123 women entrepreneurs had
created 852 jobs for their immediate families and relatives.
This included 596 full-time jobs, with an average 4.8 jobs
per enterprise. Previously, about 70% of these women had
been either employed in the informal sector or simply
housewives. Most of the women had to draw on personal or
family resources to launch their enterprises. These are in a
wide variety of sectors, such as services, commerce, pro-duction
and handicrafts. One of the characteristics of these
activities is that they all address the local market, and more
specifically the local community market. Another is that
almost 90% of the women interviewed said they found
working on their own account immensely satisfying, while
75% said they would not want to leave their current work for
a permanent job.
4.3.2. Dire Dawa Women Entrepreneurs
Association (DDWEA)
This association was created in 2000. It has today 250
members, most of whom are MSEs. The executive commit-tee
meets once a month to determine members’ training
needs. About 300 women entrepreneurs are trained each
year, and the number of requests for training is on the
increase.
DDWEA aims to provide training both in technical skills and
in those related to enterprise management and develop-ment.
Training programmes thus cover a wide variety of
areas including: textiles, clothes-making, food processing,
urban agriculture, business management and entrepre-neurship,
financial management, communication and mar-keting.
Training sessions last about eight days and are run
by an outside consultant specialising in the relevant field.
While the majority of requests for training focus on entre-preneurship
(three sessions are organised during the year),
the types of training that have the most immediate impact
are those in clothes-making, food processing and vegetable
growing.
DDWEA operates in the informal sector in the sense that its
members are micro-enterprises working in the local market
essentially for local customers. There is a membership fee
of 5 birrs (or 0.45 euros) per month. DDWEA is financed
largely through member contributions, although it also
attracts financial aid from the European Union, USAID, the
Friedrich Ebert Foundation and other international donors.
The total annual budget is 151,946 birrs (or 13,700 euros).
The cost of training per person is in the region of 1,000 birrs
(or 90 euros).
DDWEA does not appear to make a very detailed analysis
of its members’ training needs or of the impact of its work.
Nevertheless, the fact that the Dire Dawa women entrepre-neurs
have decided to join forces to provide skills training
relevant to their expanding activities gives an indication of
the success of the action plan.
4.3.3. Dire Dawa Women’s Association (DDWA)
DDWA, which was founded in 2004, has 5000 members
and 9 local groups. Its financial resources come from mem-bership
fees and the financial support given by Pathfinders
International. The aim of the association is to help HIV-pos-itive
women and prostitutes develop income-generating
activities. To this end, it has set up “Singer workshops” (so
named after the German sewing machines), which are
workshops for producing items of clothing. The women
receive practical training in making clothes specifically for

the local market, and other training in sales, accounting and
business management. All the training is provided by the
TVET College visited during the survey.
The second strand of the action plan takes the form of an
awareness campaign designed to help the women involved
in the income-generating activities both to come to terms
with their condition and change their behaviour. Members of
DDWA thus go from home to home and urge women who
have AIDS to accept the fact and agree to treatment. They
give the women instruction in bottle-feeding to prevent the
children from contracting the disease through their mother’s
milk, and put the women in contact with organisations spe-cialised
in treating AIDS so that they have better access to
medical care. The women are also taught to respect certain
rules of hygiene when carrying out domestic tasks.
DDWA has 20 social care workers who have been trained
to assist women in need. A principle central to DDWA’s
mode of operation is mutual training: in other words, a
woman trained by the association agrees either to pass on
to another what she has learned, or to take part in an
awareness-raising campaign for women needing assis-tance
or support. The action plan is an excellent example of
how social and economic integration can be achieved.
4.3.4. A training programme for empowering
women
The Integrated Programme for the Empowerment of
Women, a pilot programme developed by the Institute for
International Co-operation under the aegis of the German
Institute for Adult Education (IIZ/DW),49 is an integral part of
the country’s overall development strategy. It aims to pro-vide
capacity-building support for poor women and their
families by combining three types of action:
adult literacy programmes;
training to promote income-generating activities;
training in entrepreneurship focusing on management
skills and funding opportunities for starting up a manu-facturing
or service enterprise.
The project, which began in July 2006, is planned to last for
five years and funded by the Dutch Embassy in Ethiopia. Its
main target groups are poor women and their families
(including husbands), women trainers in existing training
centres, key persons in administrative departments and
NGOs directly involved in support programmes for women,
persons in regional offices with special responsibility for
education and women’s affairs, and trainers in TVET
Colleges.
Women in key positions or responsible for the operational
delivery of support programmes for poor women will be
given introductory briefings on the contents and methods of
the different types of training delivered. Special emphasis
will be put on the conditions necessary for successfully
completing action plans aimed at helping women to devel-op
income-generating activities.
The contents of the training programmes will be based on
both the educational level of the women concerned and an
assessment of the economic potential of the local market.
All the programmes will offer training in enterprise develop-ment,
group training on opportunities and procedures for
starting up income-generating activities, and access to
micro-credit.
The complete training course will last a minimum 360 hours
spread over three years. It will be organised to take into
account the women’s particular circumstances: work-load,
the seasonal character of their work, and their family
responsibilities. The three basic components of the action
programme (functional literacy, the acquisition of practical
skills for career development in a given sector, and facilitat-ing
the transition from learning to working situations through
access to micro-credit) will be tailored to the women’s spe-cific
needs. Financial aid for start-up operations will be
available through a special fund but subject to certain con-ditions:
the women should be able to read, write and count,
and demonstrate that they are capable of managing an
income-generating enterprise and keeping accounts.
The action plan will be closely monitored. A national steer-ing
committee will be set up and have special responsibili-ty
for co-ordinating the umbrella project at the regional and
local level. It will keep a particular watch on programmes at
49 Institut für internationale Zusammenarbeit des Deutschen Volkshochschul-Verbandes,
which aims to promote education in the informal sector in East Africa.

the local level to make sure that these work with rather than
simply add to other projects initiated by government organ-isations,
NGOs, local or regional women’s associations,
and other local community or religious groups. The project
will also benefit from the assistance of a panel of experts
who will evaluate the actions and their results and provide
relevant support for achieving overall aims.
The total budget (8,215 euros) should enable the project
to achieve its objectives.
4.4. Varied experiences from the world of agriculture
The field survey failed to identify exhaustively what training
had been carried out in the agricultural sector. However, the
PASDEP presentation did shed light on the official reports
produced by the Ministry for Finance and Economic
Development. Secondly, and thanks to the German devel-opment
agencies, it was possible to pinpoint the difficulties
encountered by rural area training centres in providing
training tailored to the needs of local people. Lastly, it pro-vided
an opportunity to visit a technical and vocational body
that is developing innovative co-operative training
approaches among farmers.
4.4.1. The highly informal nature of employment
in rural areas
86% of Ethiopia’s working population lives in rural areas,
although not all of them are employed in agriculture.
Breaking down the working population into job categories50
actually reveals that qualified workers in agriculture and
fishing account for 44.5% of the working population, while
those in services and crafts total 10%. The remainder are
identified under the term “elementary jobs”, a term that
refers to day labourers in the construction or mining indus-tries
and agriculture. It is therefore impossible to establish
how many of the working population are employed exclu-sively
in agriculture or related activities, with the exception
of skilled workers.
Comparative analysis of workers in rural and urban areas
by job type reveals a very homogeneous labour market
structure as regards freelance or self-employed workers,
who represent 40.3% and 41% of the overall labour force
respectively. It indicates that domestic jobs are much high-er
in rural areas (54.6%) than in urban areas (15%). Given
that such jobs are very characteristic of a non-structured
economy, it can be concluded that statistical analyses car-ried
out on the informal urban sector take only very partial
account of informal economic activity in Ethiopia. Moreover,
any action taken to foster the creation of income-generating
activities, as well as MSEs, must take account of not only
agricultural and rural production and services units, but also
urban production and services units.
4.4.2. Training farmers and agricultural deve-lopment
officials
According to the report drawn up by PASDEP, the policy
implemented by the Ministry of Agriculture consisted of a
programme (still in progress) of intensive training for farm-ers
and rural development officials. It has led to the net-working
of agricultural training centres and then to the deliv-ery
of training curricula designed for practical use in these
centres. Thus, depending on the type of local crop and
activity, the various centres provide information and day-to-day
help to farmers in the surrounding area, and serve as
demonstration sites for certain types of crop-growing or ani-mal
husbandry (such as bee-keeping or vegetable produc-tion).
In more concrete terms, the centres run 2- or 3-month train-ing
modules to help farmers adopt technologies and spe-cialist
techniques, such as cultivation using irrigation or silk-worm
breeding. At a broader level, the various education
and training establishments are currently training 55,000
development agents. 45,000 are to be placed in agricultur-al
training centres to provide direct support to farmers,
5,000 will operate in the veterinary field and 5,000 will pro-vide
support to existing co-operatives. At the end of 2005,
23,000 of these agents had obtained their qualification and
were placed in centres.
50 Labour Force Survey (2005), Op.cit.

During the course of the survey, it was impossible to evalu-ate
the results of the entire programme. Some of the peo-ple
met expressed doubts about the effectiveness of the
training, because it focused more on transferring knowl-edge
to farmers than really helping them acquire opera-tional
skills.
4.4.3. Training the rural population in communi-ty
skills training centres (CSTC)51
Agricultural training centres are not the only training facili-ties
available in agricultural areas. An analysis of training
facilities in the Oromiya52 region, one of the largest in
Ethiopia, indicates that it has 38 training establishments
offering technical education and vocational training at level
10+1 and 10+2 in 20 different trades, 11 agricultural train-ing
centres, 6 health training centres and 154 CSTCs. The
latter, offering informal type training, are aimed primarily at
young people excluded from the school system and adults
from rural areas. They are currently being reformed and
should eventually be better integrated into the overall voca-tional
training provision.
What are CSTCs?
At present, it is difficult to understand the role of CSTCs
without knowing their history. The first community centres
were created in 1976, when the public authorities first
launched a massive literacy campaign. Initially, CSTCs
were set up at woreda53 level in order to foster integrated
rural development. The objectives may be defined as fol-lows:
to introduce and disseminate technology suited to the
needs of the rural community, particularly farmers;
to improve backward agricultural practices through
appropriate training schemes;
to train members of the local community and enable
them to acquire the skills they need in order to do their
job;
to operate as a resource centre for the population con-cerned.
The initial plan had been to create a CSTC in each woreda.
According to available data, 404 were operational at the
beginning of the 90s. Under the administrative responsibili-ty
of the district, the centres were run jointly by the various
sectoral managers, namely for education, health and agri-culture,
with the education office running the establishment.
However, it very soon became apparent that co-operation
among the various administrations was not producing the
anticipated results, and the CSTCs gradually became
directly dependent on the financial and human resources of
the woredas.
It is in this context that the CSTCs delivered training to peo-ple
in rural areas. According to the data gathered, training
provision was either very limited (for example, 25 people
trained per year in the Oromiya region) or unsuited to the
needs of the local job market. According to Ministry of
Education data, the CSTCs trained 100,000 adults between
1978 and 1991, with the majority being farmers in rural
areas.
The EXPRO project or the setting up of model CSTCs
focussing on job creation training
In 2002, the Institute for International Co-operation of the
German Adult Education Association (Institut für
Internationale Zusammenarbeit des Deutschen
Volkshochschulverbandes - IIZ-DVV) decided, with special
funding from the German Ministry for Economic Co-opera-tion
and Development (Bundesministerium für
wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit - BMZ), to set up a non-for-mal
training project, entitled EXPRO,54 which focuses on
the creation of subsistence activities. The aim of the project
was to breathe new life into the CSTCs in various geo-graphical
and socio-economic contexts and to develop a
new centre model based on vocational training able to
encourage the people trained, especially in rural areas, to
create income-generating jobs. EXPRO was involved in the
2015 Action Programme set up by the German Government
in 2001 with a view to helping Ethiopia combat poverty and
51 Information on CSTCs or Community Skills Training Centres is taken from the IIZ-DVV
paper (2005), Poverty Reduction and Capacity Building through Livelihood Skill Training at
CSTCs and VTCs, Internal Paper No.33.
52 Oromiya Regional State, TVET Commission (2003), Regional Technical and Vocational
Education and Training (TVET) Policy.
53 A woreda is an administrative sub-division in Ethiopia equivalent to a district. A woreda is
itself divided into kebeles which correspond in size to an urban area or a delimited rural
area.
54 Bernd Sandhaas, IIZ/DVV, (2004), Community Based Non-formal Livelihood Skills
Training for Youth and. Adults in Selected Regions of Ethiopia.

achieve the Millennium Goals. It was also in line with the
second Education Sector Development Programme (ESDP
II) run by the public authorities for the 2002-2005 period,
the aim of which was to deliver basic training in 43 new
CSTCs to 65,000 young people and adults who did not
have the ten years of schooling required to access TVET, or
who often had no education at all.
The current project has the following objectives:
to raise awareness among decision-makers, involved
NGOs and national, regional and district level commu-nity
organisations as to the need and opportunities for
training young people and adults through non-formal
education;
to develop and/or modify non-formal training pro-grammes
delivered by the CSTCs, functional literacy
programmes for adults and similar initiatives, with a
view to effectively meeting the needs of the target pop-ulations;
to provide training for CSTC trainers and administrative
staff to help them to plan, implement and evaluate adult
education programmes and projects focusing on
demand and income generation;
to select a small number of community centres, voca-tional
training centres and agricultural centres in specif-ic
regions in order to make them service delivery mod-els
with acknowledged non-formal training programmes
focusing on demand and income generation for young
people and adults;
to set up, in various public, private or community centres
in rural areas especially, model functional adult literacy
(FAL) projects and strengthen co-operation between
regional and local governments/administrations on the
one hand, and the public authorities and NGOs on the
other.
The project also set up a work programme based on aware-ness-
raising among decision-makers and managers on
non-formal training issues, on their involvement in the vari-ous
district and establishment councils, and on the involve-ment
of target groups and their communities in the design
and delivery of the training. It promoted working method-ologies
and assumptions, such as the use of participative
rural problem identification, participative project planning
and market analysis prior to training needs assessment.
Training was targeted at subsistence jobs and the people
keen on doing them. At the same time, the project advocat-ed
access for these people to sufficient loans to support the
creation of income-generating jobs, as well as strengthen-ing
analytical capacity, training and dialogue among the
stakeholders responsible for implementing the entire
scheme.
The project also defined the conditions under which a cen-tre
had the opportunity to develop and deliver job creation
training. It also defined ten criteria or conditions for effective
delivery: the need to complete a prior analysis of the cen-tre’s
situation, the surrounding job market, training needs
and available human and technical resources; rooting the
training in an annual training programme and establishing
clear selection procedures and criteria for the target group
and qualified trainers for these people; drawing up simple
curricula based on detailed frames of reference, and failing
that, on practical skills, effective and qualitative monitoring
of training delivery and putting in place tools to evaluate the
results of the training and its impact.
EXPRO is still running today. The results for the end of
2004 in the 17 model centres (some of which started oper-ating
only in 2005) are as follows: 2,013 people trained,
including 541 men and 1,472 women. None of the people
trained were landowners and all were unemployed.
Although there is no accurate assessment of the impact of
the training delivered, two thirds of the centres operating
indicated that the training had improved the situation of the
people trained. Although they did not all obtain work imme-diately,
they all acquired skills that enabled them to com-pete
effectively on the local job market, and they were moti-vated
to create, either alone or in collaboration with others,
income-generating work.
The upshot of these results is that many CSTCs are cur-rently
asking to set up the same type of training and to be
able to benefit from project funds to deliver training aimed
at job creation.

4.4.4. The innovative activities of the Harar
technical and agricultural training centre
The centre was set up and continues to be funded by a
German foundation.55 Its strategy is to work with farmers
committed to rural development. It initially organised train-ing
lasting nine months, but subsequently reduced this to
three months and then to three weeks, depending on the
requests and availability of farmers. It intervenes in various
areas, including the preservation of natural resources, agri-cultural
production, dairy farming, household economics
and care of animals. The centre has moved from quantita-tive
training to training in specialist areas. It works in partic-ular
with research centres, and improves animal breeding
(crossbreeding cows to adapt them to local conditions,
importing poultry from Egypt, and so on).
From model farmer to “copy” farmer: training of
professionals by professionals
The centre established a training model based on mutual
training among farmers. In this respect, it classified farms or
farmers into two categories: model farmers and “copy” or
contact farmers.56 The distinction is not based on education
level since some model farmers have eight years of basic
education while others are quite simply illiterate. It is based
exclusively on people’s motivation and keenness to devel-op.
A farmer is a model farmer when he has a sense of and a
desire for progress, develops relationships with other farm-ers
and is capable of evaluating different approaches nec-essary
for introducing new cultivation or animal husbandry
methods. A hundred days after he begins his own experi-ment,
he then becomes responsible for transferring his new
skills to the farmers he is in charge of. The model farmer
maintains close contact with the training centre. The “copy”
or contact farmer implements what his mentor transmits to
him. He has no direct relationship with the training centre,
except in the event of serious problems that the model
farmer is unable to resolve.
The process operates as follows: the centre experiments
with new methods of cultivation or animal husbandry. It then
transfers the experiment to the model farmer, who contin-ues
it and tests it until the experiment is complete. Once the
experiment is validated, the model farmer cascades the
process to his contact farmer, who in turn reaps the bene-fit.
The centre also trained two development officials who in
turn have trained farmers in their area. Furthermore, the
centre received prior accreditation from the Ministry of
Higher Education to train 50 people per year to degree level
in agricultural disciplines.
Example one: creating model farms in the field of milk
production
Main aims of the project:
To help farmers expand their milk herds and achieve a daily
level of milk production enabling them to substantially
improve their subsistence income. To this end, the centre
helps the farmer to attain optimum milk production levels
and management without using grazing pasture.
The experiment is run on the model farm and then trans-ferred
to the copy farm, provided that farm is able to buy or
own a herd genetically suited to gradually increasing milk
production.
The model farmers selected are trained at the centre once
the project is set up. The aim of the training is to facilitate
cascading the experiment to copy farms. Experience
demonstrates that farmer-to-farmer transfer is quicker than
trainer to farmer. Model farms serve as case studies for
training in the centre and for studies into improving milk pro-duction.
Project implementation methods
Model farmers must have a farm and be prepared to cover
25% of the set-up costs. They must have access to running
water or have land where they can sink a well. They must
undertake not to allow their herd to graze on pasture and to
carry out the project with the help of the centre until they are
economically independent. The centre provides participat-
55 It is the Menschen für Menschen foundation established by the German actor, Karl Heinz
Boehm, at the time of the 1981 drought.
56 The centre uses the “model farm” and “copy farm” concepts.

ing farmers with a heifer in calf, either free of charge, on
credit or through a savings or rebate plan, whichever finan-cial
incentive method best suits their particular circum-stances.
The cost of treatments, vaccinations and assis-tance
is free for the first year. If the milk producer already
has a dairy, he receives the amount of money required to
update or maintain it.
A contractual agreement lays down the responsibilities to
be shared between the centre and the farmers selected.
The estimated overall cost per farmer is 4,365 birrs (about
400 euros).
An operational plan lays down what has to be done to
launch each operation. Short-term training is given during
the set-up stage and successful farmers are certified as
“milk producers”. This certification allows each farmer to
cascade his know-how to copy farmers. Farmers also
receive specifications laying down standards regarding
quality, production times and hygiene.
Example two: creating model farms in the field of poultry-rearing
Project objectives
The aim is to introduce poultry rearing, which is considered
to be one of the most productive activities in terms of the
creation of income-generating jobs. Small poultry-rearing
units can be set up with a minimum of investment and cost
to farmers and can very soon cover daily expenses and
provide a minimum income. Gradual growth in production
levels can later raise the farmer’s standard of living.
The poultry is genetically improved. The farmers selected
benefit from these improvements, as do the other farmers
who meet defined rearing criteria. The aim is to compare
domestically reared poultry with imported poultry.
The farmers selected receive short-term training on how to
organise the hen houses, feed the poultry and avoid dis-eases
through prevention and control. The aim is to enable
them to cascade their know-how to copy farmers. Both
model and copy farms and farmers will serve as demon-stration
and experimental locations.
The project itself
Since it is not so easy to introduce new ideas and new farm-ing
practices, launching the project requires some incen-tives
from the centre to the farmers involved.
As with the milk production project, farmers must have a
plot of land and cover 25% of the set-up costs. They must
have access to running water and agree to keep all brood-ers
away from the hen- house. As with the preceding proj-ect,
they sign an agreement regarding responsibilities
shared with the centre and undertake to continue until they
are self-sufficient.
The centre provides farmers with hens of a certain age for
a fixed period free of charge. They can also buy them at low
prices from the centre’s breeding unit or buy fertilised eggs.
As with the preceding project, all treatment costs, vaccina-tion
and other support are paid by the centre for the first
year. The estimated cost for setting up a poultry-rearing unit
is 2030 birrs per unit, or about 180 euros.
There is a detailed plan for setting up each hen-house.
Model farmers are certified as “poultry producers”, which
allows each farmer to cascade his know-how to copy farm-ers.
They also receive specifications laying down standards
regarding quality, production times and hygiene.
4.4.5. NGO actions
The field survey could be no more than limited and selec-tive.
There was no possibility of contact with other experi-ments
such as those run by NGOs. It had only documentary
access to very interesting experiments run by FARM Africa.
This NGO, which has been working in Ethiopia since 1988,
is developing innovative solutions through partnerships with
local communities and farmers themselves.57 Following the
example of the Harar centre, it intervenes in the animal hus-bandry
field and thereby helps women in the Afar and
Oromiya areas to combat poverty. It provided training for
these women, enabled them to buy goats in order to set up
a goat-herding activity and thereby earn a minimum income
for themselves and their families. The NGO highlights the
57 Information is available on FarmAfrica’s web site. This NGO is developing several projects
in Ethiopia with help from the European Union and CORDAID.

example of Abebech, who received two goats on credit, was
trained in providing elementary veterinary care and is now
able to treat up to 70 animals per month.
A project launched and run jointly by various NGOs includ-ing,
Farm Africa, Care Ethiopia, SOS Sahel, Action for
Development and the Afar animal husbandry development
association, aims to assist and train farmers to deal with
drought, respond to emergencies in the case of enforced
slaughtering, set up meat drying procedures and manage
model Prosopis plantations that resist severe drought con-ditions.
There is therefore no doubt that numerous initiatives, which
are too many to list, are under way in Ethiopia’s vast rural
areas, although they do not all reach the critical mass
required to significantly reduce the extreme poverty affect-ing
over 30% of the people living there.

5. Future developments and actions
5.1. TVET reform and the opportunities for the informal sector
The current TVET reform aims to focus vocational training
on the country’s economic development needs, and notably
to provide access to such training for those working in the
informal sector. The priority target groups are clearly listed
in the official paper on the national strategy in this area:
school dropouts, illiterate people, persons with no formal
training, entrepreneurs and employees in the informal sec-tor
needing skills recognition or further skills training, farm-ers
and their families, the unemployed and the underem-ployed
who need improved access to the labour market,
and those categories of persons who have difficulty finding
work due to their family situation (single women), their eth-nic
origins, or handicap.58 All of these target groups work
outside of the formally structured sector.
However, studies carried out in different Sub-Saharan
countries show that re-focusing the formal training system
to address the needs of craftworkers, the self-employed or
owners of informal production units in industrial, trade or
service activities will not in itself be enough to encourage
their interest in training. Rather, the uptake of training can
only come from initiatives within the informal sector itself, if
those working in the sector take on responsibility for organ-ising,
at an occupational level, the actors involved, and also
raise awareness about the benefits of training and skills
development.
In this respect the TVET reform in Ethiopia marks a step for-ward.
Yet there are also certain weaknesses that need to be
taken into account if the objectives are to be achieved.
5.1.1. Training institutions can ensure that trai-ning
becomes an effective aspect of social and
economic development
The Ethiopian TVET reform puts informal sector objectives
and target groups at the heart of the vocational education
and training system. Thus the strategy paper published in
Summer 2006,59 which clearly emphasises the need to pro-mote
self-employment and the development of MSEs, also
includes basic training in entrepreneurship and manage-ment
skills in informal, non-formal and formal training
schemes. The changes in training programme content and
organisation will undoubtedly give informal sector players
improved access to training and thus enhance their employ-ment
prospects.
Linking training schemes to economic strategy and labour
market needs
One of the most significant aspects of the reform is that it
allows training institutions to tailor their training provision to
the local economic development and labour market. The
field study at Dire Dawa and the interviews with key per-sons
at the TVET College there provided interesting infor-mation
on what has been done in this respect.
In order to link training with local priorities in economic
development and employment, the Dire Dawa College
takes part in three-monthly meetings with the city Mayor,
the director of the offices of the Ministry for Capacity
Building, the REMSEDA director and other key persons.
Through these meetings, at which local policy, strategy and
58 Ministry of Education (2006), Op.cit.
59 Op.cit.

action plans are defined, the College, in partnership with
REMSEDA and the real-estate and public works sectors,
plays an active part in helping young people to find work
and start up their own enterprise. By the same token, it con-tributes
to the local authorities’ effort to reduce the number
of unemployed persons in the city by 10%. It also assists in
analysing the training needs of MSEs and, on the basis of
the results, develops training curricula for sectors with job-creating
potential, such as food processing, stone masonry
and sewing. As a result of this direct involvement with other
local players, there are now 1,192 pupils in formal educa-tion
at the centre and 2,500 other persons in training
schemes more specifically designed to meet the develop-ment
and employment needs in the non-formal and informal
sectors.
The TVET reform also gives the College authority to
change the internal training process, even as regards for-mal
education. In the majority of the countries studied, train-ing
institutions have nationally determined teaching obliga-tions,
and any modification of the qualification or certifica-tion
systems to suit local needs is a lengthy process. The
reform in Ethiopia offers an effective means of combining
the move towards national occupational standards with the
freedom to adapt these standards to locally defined course
content and curricula. The Dire Dawa TVET College thus
opens up or closes down formal training sections (10+1,
10+2, 10+3) according to market needs. It is also changing
existing training provision: this can be in the light of local
policy changes, or further to an analysis carried out by each
department into skills shortages that need to be catered for,
which means that they can make the most appropriate
changes to course content.
Training can be adapted to the needs and circumstances
of the informal sector
The reform has also introduced the concept of flexible,
modular courses aimed at giving young persons and adult
MSE entrepreneurs in the informal sector improved access
to training. This is a pre-requisite for encouraging these tar-get
groups to take up the training available. Indeed, studies
in Benin and South Africa show that only those training
schemes adapted to the work pattern of craftworkers,
traders and various service sector workers have any
chance of arousing interest and of being taken up. Flexible
scheduling, however, is not the only consideration.
Flexibility should also be an essential component of teach-ing
methodology and follow-up: training will thus be deliv-ered
as close as possible to the place of work, and the con-straints
of work should be reflected in the teaching
approach. Training modules should also be flexible enough
to allow sufficient time for those attending courses after a
day’s work to assimilate new skills learning at an appropri-ate
rhythm.
The Dire Dawa College has taken full measure of the local
environment and now provides a wide variety of customised
training schemes for workers in the building construction,
road construction and food processing sectors. For exam-ple,
there are one- to two-week sessions and evening or
weekend courses according to demand or trainee availabil-ity,
and real on-the-job training. As a result, the College is
now working in direct contact with 75 associations or co-operative
groups with 15 or so members each. In addition
to delivering relevant skills training, the College provides
post-training support and advisory services designed to
help users find work and obtain funding for starting up a
new enterprise. The current TVET reform clearly not only
encourages training providers to introduce more flexibility
and modularity into existing training schemes, but also
gives them real opportunities for re-directing their training
efforts according to target group needs.
More flexible budgetary control for better investment and
training
The reform also explicitly reinforces the power of public
sector training centres to act and take decisions. Ministerial
directives on the reform show that the authorities aim to del-egate
maximum responsibility to the directors of these
establishments: delegation is seen as the best way of
ensuring that training provision is tailored to local market
requirements. According to the same directives, in the
longer term, training institutions will be accountable for their
actions, and funding will be performance-related.
The decision-makers at Dire Dawa College have already
shown that they are making full use of their authority to act
by closing training programmes offering few or no employ-

ment prospects, and by preparing curricula and modules
totally in line with local economic development and jobs
strategies. However, such authority is not truly meaningful
unless coupled with the authority for financial and budget-ary
decision-making. The College has developed income-generating
activities to finance its activities: re-upholstering
seats in a cinema nearby not only provides income, but also
serves as a vehicle for apprenticeship arrangements;
organising the plumbing in the College brings financial
rewards as well as giving trainees hands-on experience.
These activities are but two examples of the latitude the
College has for creating “training-production” opportuni-ties.
60 The profits generated by these activities are included
in the College budget, and are allocated by the College for
upgrading equipment to maintain quality, needs-related
training.61 Public funding accounts for 50% of the College
budget, the other 50% come from non-formal training
sources.
The power to take financial decisions necessarily condi-tions
the response a training institution will give to requests
for training from the informal sector. Field studies show,
especially in West African countries, that institutions work-ing
with the formal education system would have had no
chance of getting craftworkers or MSE entrepreneurs to
enrol in classes, had the course content and equipment
provided not been tailored to their conditions of work and
production. While the financial policy adopted by the Dire
Dawa College shows that budgetary control is one of the
ingredients of reform, it has yet to be seen whether it will be
more generally applied. Indeed, the Director of Education
for the Addis Ababa region interprets the texts in a more
restrictive way, deploring the fact that the institutions under
his authority have too little control over their budget.
5.1.2. The TVET system: skills assessment and
certification for informal sector workers
One of the basic characteristics of the current reform is the
emphasis laid on training outcomes, notably the acquisition
of vocational skills. The foremost criterion for assessing the
relevance of the system is no longer the level of certification
or of the diploma obtained, but rather the level of qualifica-tion
recognised for a given occupation. Qualifications will be
defined within the national qualification system, recognised
by the professions in a given sector, and reflect the ability
to carry on a trade at a certain level of responsibility and
with the relevant skills. With this change in approach, It is
expected that the TVET reform will have positive effects in
the informal sector.
The decisive choice of assessing educational outcomes
and skills acquisition
The new emphasis on assessment and certification proce-dures
as defined by the National Qualifications Standards
changes the very nature of the training system: it marks a
radical move away from content-based learning to skills
assessment either through trade testing or through formal,
non-formal or informal educational channels. This change
in perspective is of fundamental importance to workers in
MSEs.
It shows that the quality to be certified is not knowledge
acquired at school, but the capacity to do a job accord-ing
to nationally defined standards and performance cri-teria.
The informal sector is included in this process of
skills enhancement, and can claim recognition and cer-tification
for what it is and what it does.
It creates opportunities for workers to take up training.
This does not mean that workers will be required to start
all over again or re-learn in a formal context what they
already know. Rather, with recognition of previous skills
and learning, they will build on what they know to
acquire new improved skills for work.
The decision to bring the informal sector within the com-pass
of the new assessment and certification process has
undoubtedly created the right environment for promoting
the development of the informal economy in Ethiopia
through new skills acquisition and training. However, it
remains to be seen whether the reform will actually lead to
the recognition of skills in the sector.
60 This is an Algerian, not Ethiopian, term. It refers to a system whereby a training institu-tion
agrees to release trainees for paid outside work, thus linking training and production,
and increasing the general budget.
61 According to the College staff interviewed, a Federal law gives the College decision-mak-ers
authority for taking decisions on the allocation of resources. The survey was not able
to take this law into account. The Draft TVET Financing Framework (October 2006) cur-rently
being prepared with the support of ECBP foresees various modes of “cost sharing”
in TVET.

The importance of truly recognising acquired skills in the
informal sector
The informal sector certainly constitutes a reservoir of skills
and aptitudes, and this partly explains why its contribution
to the national economy is so huge in all the countries sur-veyed.
As is stated in the resolution of the ILO’s 90th ses-sion
on work and the informal sector: “Many people work-ing
in the informal economy have real business acumen,
creativity, dynamism and innovation, and such potential
could flourish if certain obstacles could be removed. The
informal economy could also serve as an incubator for busi-ness
potential and an opportunity for on-the-job skills acqui-sition.”
62
By focusing on vocational skills, the Ethiopian TVET reform
should encourage recognition of this reservoir of skills and
thus give added value to the skills of those now working in
the informal economy. The strategic document on the
choices of the reform specifically states that access to
assessment and certification procedures will be open to all
those who have been trained informally, that is to say, on
the job, through traditional apprenticeship or through self-learning.
However, this principle of skills recognition for all
those working in the informal sector is not so obvious. It
implies that all the trades in the sector be subject to qualifi-cation
standards analysis and then brought into the nation-al
qualification system, otherwise workers in the sector will
not be able to seek recognition for the work they do. With
the new system, the skills recognition process must be
completed before, and not after, the start of training. This
means that training schemes can then be designed to focus
either on consolidating identified skills or on meeting new
skills needs, rather on skills already acquired. Otherwise, it
would not only represent a waste of time and money but,
more importantly, it would be tantamount to a non-recogni-tion
of acquired skills.
Official texts and the interviews available do indeed confirm
the change in approach brought about by the reform. On
the other hand, they do not seem to indicate that the insti-gators
of the reform fully understood the implications of the
recognition/certification process or that they were aware of
the immensity of the task ahead.
5.2. The outreach of reform in the informal sector
The current TVET reform may have a positive effect on
stimulating activities in the informal sector, but certain
aspects may very likely reduce both its effectiveness and its
relevance to the sector. A comparison with the situation in
the other countries studied reveals certain weaknesses and
problems in Ethiopia: the low impact of the existing training
system on the country’s economic situation, the lack of
plans to structure or improve training schemes in the infor-mal
sector, and the continued poor image of vocational
training in relation to the overall education system.
5.2.1. The low impact of the training system on
the informal sector
The TVET system as it stands today concerns approxi-mately
3% of young people in any age group. This is equiv-alent
to the number of young people in traditional appren-ticeship
(106,300 young people at school in 2004/2005
compared with 94,305 in apprenticeship in the informal sec-tor).
In terms of impact on skills in the informal sector, the
TVET system trained a mere 0.0009% of persons working
in the sector in 2003.63 Self-training accounted for 30% of
new skills acquisition and skills acquisition through on-the-job
training in family enterprise accounted for the remaining
69%.
These figures show clearly how little the current technical
and vocational training impacts the informal sector. This is
not in itself a reason for rejecting the reform, but it does
nevertheless raise three important questions.
Given the current scale of vocational training, it is
impossible for training institutions to attract a significant
proportion of the 99% of workers who have never been
in formal training simply on the basis of the reform. It is
62 ILO, op.cit
63 Central Statistical Agency (2003) op.cit.

only by working with enterprises in the field and by writ-ing
training action plans into local strategies and devel-opment
plans (such as at Dire Dawa) that the informal
sector and training institutions will be brought closer
together.
In addition to private and public-sector TVET Colleges,
there are many community training centres (CTCs) and
farming institutions that are in direct contact with the
local population. It is difficult to imagine that the reform
could have a determining effect in the informal sector if
all or most of these institutions and their trainers are not
involved in implementing it. The Benin study demon-strates
that only plans worked out by all the institution-al,
economic, social and professional key players will
successfully drive implementation of reform. This will
only happen in Ethiopia if national policy encourages
the training institutions and key players to work togeth-er.
Otherwise, the reform will not produce the desired
effects, and will have very little impact on the target
groups.
The TVET Colleges will need to have more than an
open-door policy. In other words, they should be capa-ble
of delivering training away from the centre and
analysing the local market. They should also define
teaching approaches tailored to the particular situation
and work patterns of workers in the informal sector,
develop new forms of cognitive learning, and construct
technical and management training schemes that lead
progressively from technical skills acquisition to enter-prise
development and management. Given the low
impact they have on the informal sector and their lack of
expertise in this domain, if the Colleges are to succeed
in the venture, they will need to work in partnership with
other training institutions and in close collaboration with
trainers already in contact with MSEs in the informal
sector.
5.2.2. TVET reform and the lack of recognition
of skills development processes in the
informal economy
One of the problem areas of the reform is the lack of con-sideration
given to training potential within the informal sec-tor,
in spite of the fact that provision is made for recognis-ing
skills acquired in the sector.
Nowhere does the reform mention traditional apprentice-ship
as an environment for training and skills development.
Apprenticeship is approached from the angle of employers
and employees who have gone through the apprenticeship
system and who now need to raise their level of recognised
skills and qualifications. While apprenticeship in Ethiopia
does not have the same dimension or innovative strengths
as in Benin, Senegal or Cameroon, it is nonetheless the
major source of acquired skills for young people entering
the job market, alongside self-training and on-the-job train-ing
in a family environment. As in West African countries,
this raises the question not only of how to raise the level of
skills variously acquired in the informal sector, but also of
how to improve the ways of acquiring skills and know-how
for people who have no other way of acquiring job-related
skills and finding work. Rather than focus on the reform of
the education system and its capacity to re-train or qualify
groups with no experience of formal education, would it not
be more constructive to concentrate on a large-scale proj-ect
aimed at helping craftworkers and producers of goods
and services sectors to improve the skills and trade know-how
of the young people they are responsible for?
Such a project implies that TVET reform should focus on
working adults and make a considerable effort to raise the
skills levels of all MSE entrepreneurs who provide appren-ticeship
or on-the-job training. The benefits of the project
would be threefold:
similarly to what is planned for the weaving and clothes-making
sectors (ILO project), it would raise the quality
level of producers and products in the informal sector;
it would create opportunities for helping apprenticeship
masters better structure the training paths for their
apprentices, and thereby provide improved training;
it would enable some players to work towards extending
co-operative forms of training as proposed by the
reform, and others towards encouraging MSEs to fulfil
their role as on-the-job training providers for young peo-ple.
These remarks and observations raise the question of
whether TVET reform can invest both in a quality-oriented
organisation of existing modes of apprenticeship in the

informal sector and in the re-organisation of the modes of
intervention of training institutions aimed at target groups in
this sector.
5.2.3. A paradigm shift with limited effects
In terms of the options for the informal economy, TVET
reform targets specific groups: entrepreneurs, the self-employed,
independent traders, and domestic workers who
engage in profit or income-generating activities. These
groups may be illiterate, poorly educated or trained, fre-quently
unemployed or underemployed, and are often
seeking ways to improve their social and professional inte-gration
into the job market. These choices reflect the high
priority given to the reform of the TVET system in the fight
against poverty and, more generally, the belief that recog-nising
and raising the skills level of all people in work,
including informal sector workers, is a necessary condition
for achieving the Millennium Objectives and for ensuring
that the Ethiopian economy moves from survival and sub-sistence
to development and growth.
The analysis of the different components of the reform and
of the field studies show that there are doubts that TVET will
be able to act as significant dynamo for change. The rea-sons
given are:
the attitudes of the vocational training institutions in the
education system seem to have changed, and now
more attention is paid to the choice of pupils going into
secondary school. Entrance to TVET institutions is no
longer on the basis of negative selection, which meant
that pupils with the lowest grades in the class were
automatically sent there. Today, pupils can choose the
technical and vocational path of studies if that is what
they want to do. Similarly, TVET training no longer leads
to a dead-end: pupils who obtain their diploma at 10+3
level can now go to university and continue their stud-ies.
However, TVET is still perceived as being reserved
for those who do not have the aptitude for going into the
general studies section in secondary school. This is
reinforced by the fact that vocational training is limited to
jobs or posts for labourers and technicians. On the other
hand, the analysis of TVET’s role in developing and
emerging countries shows that vocational training has
an attraction, and thus an effectiveness, in direct pro-portion
to the level of social integration of those young
men and women who have chosen that path;
for the moment, the reform does not take into account in
any explicit or structured way the situation of young
people who drop out of school before the legal working
age. As a result, like most of their fellow Africans, in the
streets, they forget the little knowledge they acquired at
school. The absence of any thinking on pre-vocational
training for under-achieving young people in the context
of TVET reform, will most probably have a dampening
effect on plans to make these young people a priority
category of the target groups. It also means that com-plementary
training schemes targeting these young
people may well be introduced when they have already
lost the basic schooling skills that would allow them to
acquire new knowledge and skills in the best possible
conditions.
These observations are not intended to pass a negative
judgement on the current reform. They merely aim, by a
comparative analysis of the situation in Ethiopia and in the
other countries studied, to encourage a debate about the
best possible ways of ensuring the successful implementa-tion
and optimal impact of this reform, which has complete-ly
pertinent objectives.
5.3. The challenge of revitalising the informal sector
The analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of TVET
reform in relation to the informal economy, with emphasis
on ongoing training trends, provides an opportunity to make
a number of proposals for constructive thinking and action
in order to optimise the means made available by the
Ethiopian authorities, with support from German develop-ment
aid agencies, for raising skills and training levels in
MSEs. She are based on the initial conclusions of the
reports on the other countries studied, but remain firmly
rooted in Ethiopia’s specific context.

5.3.1. Looking closely at the real potential of
traditional apprenticeship and self-lear-ning
methods
The field study highlighted how difficult it is for key persons
in TVET to perceive the reality, or even the existence of tra-ditional
apprenticeship. Through the statistical analysis of
the skills sources in the informal sector,64 it also showed
that the same key persons had a very vague notion not only
of the types and level of the vocational skills of MSE
employees and entrepreneurs, but also of the way in which
these had been acquired.
At present, it would seem difficult for the artisans of TVET
reform to develop relevant training for groups in the non-structured
economy without first knowing exactly how train-ing
in all its forms, be it on the job, apprenticeship, or self-learning,
is provided. A good builder knows the type of soil
on which he lays his foundations to support his walls.
The proposal made by the Director of the Ministry of
Employment and Social Affairs to launch a comprehensive
survey on apprenticeship is more than timely. This should
contribute towards a better understanding of the different
activities in the sector, the various trades, and the nature of
the training and contractual linkages between master-craftsmen
and their apprentices. It will serve to identify the
cornerstones that could underpin not only more effective
development of ways of passing on or cascading know-how
and skills, but also the inclusion of improved apprenticeship
within the overall reform process. The study should howev-er
widen the scope of its remit to include the different forms
of skills transfer in the informal sector. It should also extend
its approach to apprenticeship to forms of self- and family-based
ways of learning.
5.3.2. The need for a qualitative analysis of
informal economy occupations
The implementation of the vocational accreditation and cer-tification
process on the basis of occupational standards
applies to both the informal and formal sectors. However,
given the current status of the project for identifying the
standards and establishing Centres of Competence, this
assumes that experience acquired in the informal sector will
be validated on the basis of trades that are common to the
two sectors. It is not clear that this assumption is really
valid, and it might be useful, as in Benin, to consider having
progressive skills development stages, or, as in Cameroon
and South Africa, to adopt a descriptive approach for spe-cific
informal sector trades and activities.
Whatever the case may be, the research departments in
the future Centres of Competence research departments
need to think about different forms of accreditation and cer-tification
that take account of a combination of factors.
These include the concrete relationship that informal sector
workers have with their knowledge and skills, the degree to
which their activities are similar to or different from occupa-tional
standards and the eventual need to identify the occu-pations
that are unique to the world of MSEs and self-employment.
5.3.3. The need to go through with plans to
recognise skills acquired in the informal
sector
The reform acknowledges that the sector offers a great pool
of skills or, as the ILO puts it, an opportunity to acquire skills
on the job. It thus constitutes something of cultural revolu-tion
because it takes into account both the relative limits of
formal training schemes and the cognitive and experiential
value provided by the workplace, whether this be an
income-generating activity or a micro-enterprise focused on
an exclusively local market. All the conditions are therefore
in place to give the informal economy its rightful role in the
development of human resources.
However, the certification of skills acquired in the workplace
is not self-evident. It can be neither successfully introduced
simply by passing legislation, nor exclusively reserved for
participants in TVET system training courses. It must be
able to work as a tool for motivating people to train more,
and thus be included in any activities that aim to enhance
the role effectively played by MSEs in production and serv-ices
in order to provide incentives for their skills develop-ment.
The Benin precedent, with the setting up of occupa-tional
centres, may serve as a point of reference, especial-ly
given that both FEMSEDA and the REMSEDAs are
64 Central Statistical Agency (2003), op.cit.

already acting as places for enhancing and promoting
MSEs. Certification schemes for informal sector workers
will only be effective if they are included in an action plan
that acknowledges the informal economy’s contribution to
development and employment policies, its capacity for ini-tiative,
creativity and innovation, as the ILO puts it, and thus
also the skills development of its workers and the skills
shortages that prevent it from making full use of its capaci-ties.
In the absence of such an overarching plan, it is high-ly
unlikely that informal sector workers will seek certification
in the Centres of Competence.
5.3.4. The need to strengthen sectoral, territo-rial
and institutional dynamics
The current reform is creating multi-partner TVET advisory
boards at federal, regional and local levels, alongside the
training centres. It also provides for the creation of working
committees with the same partners, which will be active in
the strategic planning and funding of the national qualifica-tions
framework, non-formal training, co-operative training,
apprenticeship, guidance, curriculum development, etc. All
of these boards and committees include at least ten mem-bers
representing the authorities, the economic and social
partners, users (parents and students), training providers
and so on. The field survey made it possible to go beyond
this rather formal and established approach to representa-tion
and to identify the territorial partnerships that are work-ing
on the definition of local development policies and the
organisation of training centres’ training provision.
However, neither the documentary analysis nor the numer-ous
meetings in the capital and provinces brought to light
any Ethiopian sectoral/trade organisations sufficiently influ-ential
to defend their members’ interests and their repre-sentative
participation in defining the specifics of given pro-fessions
along with their skills and training needs.
The employers’ federation emphasised both its wish to
encourage the development of sectoral bodies and its prob-lems
in bringing them together, given that the public author-ities
have attributed this task to the Chamber of Commerce.
The Ethiopian trade union confederation spoke of the prob-lems
it has in getting informal economy workers to join a
union due to their lack of organisation and the instability of
their work. Accordingly, they also find it difficult to represent
these workers’ interests as far as their skills and training
needs are concerned.
The meeting with the Chamber of Commerce shed light on
the existence of Directive No.341/2002, which authorises
the creation of sectoral associations at national, regional
and woreda level. These, however, have to be affiliated to
the chambers of commerce. They also have a legal status
that sets them more on a level of authorised and supervised
organisations, rather than on a level of real trade associa-tions
able to act as a driving force for analysis, initiative and
decision-making in fields such as skills and training needs.
In comparison to the other countries surveyed, Ethiopia
lacks the sectoral dynamics that have inspired and under-pinned
the national TVET reform in Benin, which is enhanc-ing
and developing traditional apprenticeship. The same
dynamics inspired South Africa’s sectoral skills funds to
invest in the MSEs’ priority skill needs, and also motivated
Benin craftworkers to design and develop forms and for-mats
for youth apprenticeship suited to initial educational
levels and the specific nature of the trades to be acquired.
Such sectoral dynamics would make a vital contribution to
enabling MSEs to take on responsibility for the reform that
is being launched in their interest.
5.3.5. How to have informal sector workers take
on responsibility for their own training and
skills
The information provided on training schemes outside the
TVET area reveals the extent to which skills development in
the informal sector is based on learning processes that dif-fer
from those in the established training system, whether
formal or non-formal. The example of schemes for women
shows how important it is to run awareness-raising activi-ties
prior to training. REMSEDA’s training scheme, although
run by TVET College trainers, proves how useful it is to link
training activities to business development, which increas-ingly
requires new technical knowledge and new manage-ment
skills. The agricultural training model, which brings
together model farmers and copy farmers by cascading

experiences and activities, clearly emphasises that peer-to-peer
relationships are much more effective than those
between trainers and trainees.
This small selection of examples offers just a glimpse of
what is really happening when it comes to cascading and
transferring experience in the informal sector. However,
there is no analysis of self-learning routes, such as the
apprentices’ “seeing, listening and acting” approach in their
relationship with the apprenticeship master, or the stone-cutters
route, where learning and doing are closely linked,
as well as the experiments of profit-making centres.
All of these examples show that training in the informal sec-tor
is truly effective when it develops and rolls out training
models that have been instigated in the informal sector
itself, and when it gives those working in the sector the
opportunity to become stakeholders in their own skills
development.

In conclusion: the need to refocus the reform on grassroots initiatives
Ethiopia is presently transforming its whole TVET model.
The current reform has provided a structured basis for all
the conditions needed to give informal economy workers
access to the benefits of training and qualifications. It has
effectively established a virtual right for such people to ben-efit
from all the advantages that were previously reserved
for students in formal training establishments. They can
now effectively access certification and qualifications. They
are totally free to take part in flexible and modular training
tailored to their initial educational level and working circum-stances.
They even have the possibility of choosing options
that will lead to training in business creation, as well as
financial and technical support. Everything is therefore in
place to ensure that the reform of the system contributes to
efforts to reduce poverty. This process will help the informal
sector to move away from being a subsistence economy
towards growth and development.
However, as the survey demonstrated, there is a lack of
synergy between the legislators’ intentions and people
working at grassroots level. Such synergy is possible, as
the Dire Dawa region has proved by setting the example of
the various ways and means that can be used.
Nonetheless, it will only be effective if the reform integrates
into its own priorities and policies the potential contribution
of existing training schemes, pilot projects, and innovative
approaches being developed in the informal sector, and if it
accepts the need to refocus its institutional vision by
empowering informal sector workers to improve their own
skills and qualification levels.

Appendix: recommendations and proposals for action
Having analysed the strengths and weaknesses of the
TVET reform, it is important now to make some recommen-dations
and proposals for action in order to maximise the
effectiveness of the objectives and measures introduced by
the reform. The following recommendations and proposals
could be implemented in a three-step programme.
Step 1: Draw up an inventory of existing skills
in the informal sector
A statistical analysis of the training routes for informal sec-tor
workers shows that more than 99% of them are trained
in family situations, through traditional apprenticeship
schemes or on-the-job training. However, we have no clear
picture of the skills that actually exist in the informal sector
in Ethiopia today.
There is no real understanding of the role and place of
traditional apprenticeship.
No assessment has been made of existing skills or skills
that need to be developed by informal sector workers in
those sectors identified by the PASDEP as having
potential for employment growth (certain agricultural
occupations, clothes-making, metal-working, the con-struction
industry, intra-urban services, etc.). The devel-opment
of skills in these sectors would improve occu-pational
profitability and enhance the marketing quality
of the products produced and services provided.
There is no job description of the occupations that are
predominant in the informal sector or analysis of the
way in which such descriptions could be recognised
under the national qualifications system.
All these elements are prerequisites for the certification and
skills enhancement of informal sector workers. It is difficult
to see, however, how they could be taken into consideration
if the authorities do not decide to draw up a precise inven-tory
of existing skills on which to base a priority action plan.
1. Gain a better understanding of current practice in tradi-tional
apprenticeship schemes, and improve the organi-sation
of such schemes, in particular to help apprentice-ship
mentors improve the training they provide for young
apprentices.
2. Identify occupations in the informal economy that have
high employment potential and include them, if they are
not already listed, in the proposed national standardised
directory of skills.
3. Introduce a methodology for accrediting prior skills,
which is adapted to the illiteracy or low level of educa-tion
of the majority of those working in the informal sec-tor.
4. Define the concrete measures needed to increase these
workers’ employment skills: what types of training, in
what fields, and aiming at what outcomes?
Step 2: Help informal sector workers to plan
their own skills development
Overall, the country surveys have shown that initiatives in
the informal sector are only really effective if those working
in the sector are involved in their own skills development.
Consequently, the success of the reform as far as the infor-mal
sector is concerned will depend on a certain number of
prerequisites.
If the reform is to reach the set target group, it would
appear desirable, if not indispensable, that the profes-sional
organisations of informal sector workers be
involved in the implementation of the reform. The survey
has shown, however, that the consultation bodies,
whether at national, regional or local level, do not suffi-

ciently involve representatives from the different cate-gories
of craft workers, MSE associations (manufactur-ing
and services) or women who create income-gener-ating
activities. This makes it difficult for these bodies to
take into consideration the actual skills demands of the
90% of informal sector workers who make up the
Ethiopian labour market.
A comparative analysis between Ethiopia and other
countries such as Benin or South Africa shows that rais-ing
the level of skills of those working in micro-enter-prises
or small production or service units requires the
introduction of specific training measures entailing on-the-
job skills development, while progressively ensuring
that such skills development is brought into line with
more structured and effective methods of apprentice-ship.
Although the reform intends to recognise skills
acquired in this way, it still does not explicitly envisage
any means for designing and developing training con-tent
that would enable traditional apprenticeship to
evolve into a real dual-type training system in which the-ory
and practice are combined, or which would help the
various methods of peer-to-peer training in order to
progress towards a more structured form of tutored
learning or mentorship.
The fact that informal sector workers have in a sense been
left outside the current reform process has led the instiga-tors
of the reform to question whether this sector will in fact
be able to move from a paradigm of survival to an econom-ic
paradigm of growth and development. If they do want to
achieve this, they will need to implement the following pri-orities:
1. support the informal sector’s professional associations
by actively involving them in the definition of their own
skills needs;
2. compile a compendium of good practice in the acquisi-tion
of knowledge and skills outside the TVET system
and look at how such practice could be applied to other
workers in the informal economy;
3. give thought to training schemes for managers of micro-enterprises
and SMEs enabling them to enhance their
own professional skills while providing the best possible
training for the young trainees under their responsibility.
Appendix: recommendations and proposals for action
Step 3: Foster synergies between stakeholders
and initiatives in the informal sector
The field survey has highlighted the existence in Ethiopia of
a great many initiatives aimed at informal sector workers.
However, information about the actions carried out is insuf-ficiently
shared among their instigators, and there is even
less interaction between them concerning the outcomes
and impacts. This dispersal of efforts and means poses a
problem; the analysis of the situation in the various coun-tries
shows that a shared vision based on a partnership
between public and private players in the field of training in
the informal sector is needed if skills are to be improved
and profitability increased. Those in charge of the TVET
reform would be well advised to take the following steps:
1. make an inventory of all initiatives aimed at upgrading
skills in the informal sector and improving quality in pro-duction
and services, and analyse the possibilities for
synergies and complementarities;
2. set up a co-ordination and study group bringing togeth-er
the national authorities, bilateral and multilateral
donors, national and international government agencies
and NGOs in order to establish a minimum of co-opera-tion
in the implementation of the various different proj-ects
and programmes;
3. draw on the conclusions of this report and, in particular,
on the partnership it has established between the
German and French co-operation agencies, and invite
this partnership to work together in moving on from a
stage of analysis and observation to one of co-ordinated
and effective action.
We recommend that the GTZ and AFD give a joint presen-tation,
in Addis Ababa, of the conclusions of the study on
training in the informal sector in the seven African countries
(South Africa, Angola, Benin, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Morocco
and Senegal), and that this lead to a debate, under the
responsibility of the Ethiopian authorities in charge of edu-cation
and training, on the ways and means of stimulating
the informal sector in Ethiopia through a reform of TVET. In
this perspective, it would be useful to organise a joint work-shop
between GTZ and AFD, in the framework of the ECBP,
to be held during the first six months of 2007, to discuss the
results of this report and the recommendations it makes.

List of acronyms and abbreviations
AFD Agence Française de Développement
French Development Agency
BMZ Bundesministerium für wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit und Entwicklung
German Ministry for Economic Co-operation and Development
CIM Center für Internationale Migration
Centre for International Migration
CSTC Community Skills Training Centre
DED Deutscher Entwicklungsdienst
German Development Service
ECBP Engineering Capacity Building Program
ESDP Education Sector Development Program
FAL Functional Adult Literacy
FEMSEDA Federal Micro and Small Enterprises Development Agency enterprises
GDP Gross domestic product
GNI Gross National Income
GTZ Gesellschaft für technische Zusammenarbeit
German Agency for Technical Co-operation
HDI Human Development Indicator
IIZ/DW OrganizationInstitut für internationale Zusammenarbeit des Deutschen Volkshochschul-Verbandes
Institute for International Co-operation of the German Adult Education Association
ILO International Labour Organisation
LFS Labour Force Survey
MSEs Micro and small enterprises
NGOs Non-governmental organisation
OECD Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
PASDEP Plan for Accelerated and Sustained Development to End Poverty
REMSEDA Regional Micro and Small Enterprises Development Agencies
SES Senior Expert Service
TVET Technical and Vocational Education and Training
UNDP United Nations Development Programme
UNESCO United Nations Organisation for Education, Science and Culture

References
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