Although the gender-specific challenges of women’s largely unequal involvement in agricultural activities are generally well-articulated, social protection policy and programming have not adequately recognised the gendered experiences of poverty and vulnerability and the extent to which gender inequality affects both social protection programme design and outcomes. To maximise the linkages between social protection and agricultural growth, and to improve the effectiveness of both for reducing poverty and improving food security, it is imperative that gender-sensitive measures are integrated into policy and programme design and implementation.
This paper focuses on a subset of social protection programmes – public works schemes – which aim to tackle rural poverty and food insecurity and/or promote agricultural productivity. Two case studies of large public works programmes, i.e. the Productive Safety Net Programme (PSNP) in Ethiopia and the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) in India, are used to analyse the extent to which gender-specific risks and vulnerabilities are considered in programme design and implementation.