many developing countries increasingly recognize that social protection measures are needed to relieve the immediate deprivation of people living in poverty and to prevent others from falling into poverty when a crisis strikes social protection can also help recipients become more productive by enabling them to manage risks build assets and undertake more rewarding activities these benefits spread beyond the immediate recipients to their communities and the broader economy as recipients purchase food agricultural inputs and other rural goods and services in most low and middleincome countries agriculture remains the largest employer of the poor and is a major source of livelihoods through wage labour and own production for household consumption and the market