The student research assistant, who will ideally be studying the M.A. International Economics and Business or the M.A. Development Studies programme, will support the research project “How to ensure that public works programmes achieve what they promise?”. The project aims at analysing the effects of past and present public works activities in Sub-Saharan Africa, especially Malawi. The focus lies on the social protection effects of such programmes and the dynamics of the creation and maintenance of public works infrastructure over time (e.g., irrigation sites and land resource management structures), including the effects of the presence of public works on the mobilisation of rural communities. Several data collections have taken place in Malawi since the start of the project and in 2019 the work will concentrate on analysing the collected data.