Improving Refugee Integration Through Public Works: Experimental Evidence at Scale from Ethiopia

This study examines the impacts of integrating refugees into a national public works and livelihoods program, leveraging a nationwide large-scale randomized controlled trial conducted among 22,500 households across six refugee camps and neighboring areas in Ethiopia. The program under investigation, called Refugee and Host Integration through the Safety Net (RHISN), offers remunerated public works, business trainings and coaching, and a USD 600 business grant to refugee and host beneficiaries to promote economic livelihoods and socio-economic integration between refugees and hosts through joint work in integrated teams. 

The researchers will assess i) whether the program improves economic, social, and psychological well-being, and ii) the effects of outgroup exposure through mixing refugees and hosts in public works groups on social and economic network formation, workplace productivity, and social cohesion in hosting regions. The clustered randomization generates exogenous variation in the population share of households participating in RHISN, and in the intensity of exposure between refugees and hosts across neighborhoods as well as within their work team. This will allow the researchers to quantify not only the direct impacts of the program on recipients, but also the overall impact on the local economy through economic spillovers (e.g., prices, wages and demand) and social spillovers (e.g., through evolving social norms or the propagation of attitudes within social networks).