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

This study evaluates the integration of refugees and host communities into Ethiopia’s national urban safety net program, the Refugee and Host Integration through the Safety Net (RHISN). Targeting 22,500 households across seven nationwide refugee camps and adjacent cities, RHISN provides three years of paid public works, legal work permits, business and livelihood training, and a $600 business grant. The intervention aims to improve both economic livelihoods and social cohesion between refugees and host communities by creating mixed work teams and offering shared economic opportunities. Using a two-stage clustered randomized controlled trial (RCT), the study will assess the direct impacts of the program on participants' economic and social well-being, as well as the broader economic and social spillovers on local markets, prices, wages, and community cohesion. The research will contribute to global policy discussions by providing evidence on the effectiveness of integrating refugees into national social protection systems for local economies and social cohesion, offering scalable insights for other low- and middle-income countries facing similar refugee challenges.