Public works employment in Tunisia has large, positive effects for both directly targeted individuals and their neighbours in the short-term, which mostly disappear five years post-programme

Through providing guaranteed employment for a period, workfare programmes provide insurance against the shocks to income that can lead to conflict

Programmes need to be better targeted and designed to maximise the social externalities they create for them to be cost-effective

India’s NREGA programme increased rural and urban wages and reduced rural to urban migration