The aim of this paper is to focus on a sub-set of social protection programmes— public works schemes which aim to tackle rural poverty and food insecurity and/or promote agricultural productivity. We focus in particular on two case studies of large public works programmes in Ethiopia (the Productive Safety Net Programme (PSNP) and India (the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) drawing on a desk-based review and recent fieldwork (in April, August and September 2009) to analyse the extent to which gender-specific risks and  vulnerabilities are considered in programme design and implementation.