more effective in targeting the poorest in the community. No such projects have yet been
 implemented. It will be important to monitor the types of households who find this attractive.

 PWPs, and particularly FFW, are often seen as a way of targeting poor women. Both
 MASAF and WFP specifically mention this. This is certainly possible, but would need careful
 program design. MASAF has had difficulty attracting women to its pilot projects.. Initially about
 50 percent of applicants were women, but most of these were old and not capable of undertaking
 the physical labour involved. Now there are relatively few women participating This may be
 in part because the pilot projects all involve rnariwnrk The mission was told that there may be
 traditional restrictions on women working on roads along side men. However, this has not been
 mentioned as a problem on WFP's emergency FFW projects. The registration figures show
 slightly more female than male participants. The recent appraisal (p, 1996 indicates that in
 NGO administered FFW projects, supplied by WFP, women made up over 80 percent of
 participants, but that in the MASAF projects, where WFP supplied food, the male-female ratio
 started off evenly, but female participation fell as the work progressed. This was partly because
- a rule was introduced that only one household member could participate, and this was usually the
 man. Also, the foremen preferred to have male participants, and wl lay mo
 preference for male workers.

 This means that, if female participation is an objective of a FFW program, both the
 community and the works supervisors will have to be carefully informed of this and actual
 participation, as opposed to initial registration, should be monitored.

 In the short-term, PWPs will improve the food security of participating households.
 However, the effect is likely to be short-term. They could possibly lead to improvements in
 longer-term food security, depending on how the additional income is used within the household.
 PWPs will not provide long term employment, nor, unless they improve participants' skills, will
 they improve employment prospects for participants.

 The long-term developmental impact of PWPs is determined by the size and impact of the
 resource transfer to rural areas, and the developmental impact of the assets produced. This is also
 true where WFP provides an incentive for community self-help projects. There may be an
 increased role for support to these projects particularly where they directly improve the resource
 base of communities, e.g. soil conservation and forestry projects.

 If PWPs are to be effective as a response to transitory food insecurity, they must be
 capable of speedy implementation. It clearly took a few months for some EPAs to respond to the
 WFP emergency program this year. This is very common when emergency FFW projects are first
 introduced. This implies that projects or blueprints for projects have to be prepared in advance,
 and available to be taken down from the shelf when the need arises.


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