This case study was undertaken as part of a research project funded by the UK Department for International Development (DFID) (2008-2010) and the Australian Government, (AusAID, under the Australian Development Research Awards 2008) (2008-2011), looking at gender and social protection effectiveness in Latin America, Sub Saharan Africa, South Asia and Southeast Asia.

In Ethiopia over the past five years there has been a growing policy momentum around social protectcion, motivated by a concern to move away from a cycle of dependency on emergency food aid. One of the key social protection instruments is the Productive Safety Net Programme (PSNP) public works programme. This purpose of this report is to analyse the extent to which gender-specific economic and social risks inform the PSNP programme design and implementation, with the aim of informing onoing initative to strenghten the programme's effectiveness.