for similar reasons households may underinvest in the education and health of their children as well as adopt negative riskcoping strategies such as distress sales of assets reducing the quantity and quality of food consumption begging or taking children out of school and exploiting natural resources in an unsustainable manner it helps households manage risk a growing body of evidence shows that social assistance programmes not only prevent households from falling into deeper poverty and hunger when exposed to a shock but by helping the poor overcome liquidity and credit constraints and manage risks more effectively it also allows them to invest in productive activities and build assets