The Productive Safety-Net Programme, launched in 2005, is an important policy initiative by government and donors to shift millions of chronically food-insecure rural people from recurrent emergency food aid to a more secure and predictable, and largely cash-based, form of social protection.

During 2006 three linked studies were commissioned by DFID Ethiopia to assess the first phase of implementation and to provide recommendations for the second phase, starting in 2007. ODI led on two of these studies: a) on the targeting of the programme, and b) on policy, programme and institutional linkages. The draft reports were presented and discussed at regional (sub-national) workshops supported by the World Bank. The Institute of Development Studies led on the third report.