Appraising legal and institutional framework to implement ‘OSH RULE’ in Ethiopian Construction Industry: prospects and constraints

Abstract

Construction industry has two opposite prospective factors toward the development. It is widely recognized as being both economically and socially important. Yet it is also considered to be the most hazardous. Global estimates by the International Labor Organization (ILO) show that occupational health and safety (OHS) problems in the construction industry has a disproportionately high rate of recorded accidents. ILO estimates at least 60,000 fatal accidents a year on construction sites around the world, that is one in six of all fatal work-related accidents while global trade union federation puts the figure much higher at 108,000 which is 30% of all work related accidents. In addition, while the cost of all occupational accidents account to 1.25 trillion USD (4%), Occupational injuries and fatalities within the construction industry have been estimated over 10 billion USD annually.

Regarding Ethiopian situation, study carried out in 2020 revealed that the highest prevalence of occupational injury was reported from the construction sites which are 50.8%. Different studies that were carried out prior to this 2020 study in specific part of the country, like in Addis ababa, Gonder, Dessie, arba minch, SNNP regional state, etc also shows construction accidents is responsible for 38% ~ 46% of all work related accident. More surprisingly, research has found that 98% of these accidents are preventable. An instrument ever created to control this work related tragedy was implementing OSH rule at work site. Ideally, the implementation of OSH rule can be defined by the state of its legal and institutional framework, the level of the capacities of institutions responsible for OSH rules enforcement, and the degree of its actual implementation and enforcement. Thus, the objective of this paper is to appraise the status of legal and institutional framework to implement OSH rule in Ethiopian construction industry to take stock of the progress made in the industry and identify the remaining challenges ahead in general and its prospects and constraints in particular.