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Paper short abstract:

The paper explores the extent to which the recently revised public works program in Malawi affects household resilience to climate-related shocks, through the asset created by the program. The study relies on different qualitative methods employed during the fieldwork conducted in 2024.

Paper long abstract:

One of the main arguments for implementing public works programs (PWPs) instead of other social protection schemes like cash transfers is that the assets created through these programs could generate medium to long-term benefits. This is also important as the costs for the supervision and construction materials account for approximately half of program budget. Despite this, there is scarce empirical evidence of PWPs’ effects through the “asset channel”: indeed, most of the studies have focused only on the traditional “wage channel”. To bridge this gap, the paper examines the extent to which the assets created through Malawi’s Climate-Smart Enhanced Public Works Program, a program implemented by the government of Malawi and funded by the World Bank, enhances the resilience of households to climate shocks, such as drought and floods. The study mostly relies on focus group discussions and interviews with different stakeholders at national, district and local level. These interviews were conducted during a fieldwork in September 2024 in two Southern districts of Malawi highly affected by climate change. The analysis is complemented with quantitative data on the quality of assets. By combining these different methods, we aim at understanding how the asset created through the program affects poor communities’ capacity to cope with, and adapt to the negative consequences of climate change, and what are the key factors that ensure the realization and maintenance over time of high-quality, impactful assets. This way, the paper intends to derive policy insights on how to design PWPs aiming at enhancing climate resilience.