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epresented more than 60 per cent of participants. 73In India, women comprised almost 50 per centof participants in NREGS nationally in 2010, eventhough the actual proportion varied widely acrossstates. 74 During the design phase, women’s rightsadvocates achieved several important victories,including a reservation of one third of all jobs forwomen and the mandatory provision of childcareat all worksites, 75 although lack of monitoring andenforcement has meant that these services arerarely implemented. 76 In some states, includingUttar Pradesh, women’s organizations havebeen successful in making NREGS more genderresponsiveand increasing women’s participationrates, wages and representation in supervisoryroles. 77The benefits offered by such schemes, however,have not always been sufficient to provideparticipants with an adequate standard ofliving. In the Argentinian scheme, for example,payments represented approximately 75 per centof the monthly minimum wage up to 2002 butthis gradually decreased to 10 per cent by 2010 asminimum wage levels were raised in subsequentyears. 78 Benefit adequacy was also a major issuein the first phase of South Africa’s EPWP. There wasno specified minimum wage and stipends variedwidely across regions and sectors, with paymentsin the social programmes being especially low. In2008/2009, the average rate for social sector work,where women dominate, was R43 (US$5.8) perday compared to R78 ($9.6) in the more traditionalinfrastructure components where men dominate. 79In the second phase of the programme, a minimumwage of R60 per day was introduced to addressthe low and varying benefit levels. This was alsoinflation-adjusted on an annual basis, reachingR66.34 ($6.9) in mid-2013. This is similar to theminimum wage stipulated for domestic workers andhigher than the average stipend paid during the firstphase of the EPWP. 80Many public works programmes still exhibit genderbiases that dilute benefits or discriminate againstcertain categories of women. In the Indian NREGS,for example, the guarantee of 100 days of work perrural household risks putting women at the back ofthe queue, given rural power inequalities. 81 While thereservation rule for women helps counter genderbias, expanding the overall availability of workopportunities and defining these as an individualentitlement would benefit both women and men.Public works programmes that only offer physicallydemanding work are also likely to exclude somewomen or put them at a disadvantage wherewages are linked to workload.Benefits of public works participationMore positively, some design features of publicworks schemes have enhanced their direct andindirect benefits, including specifically for women.In the NREGS, for example, wages are set inaccordance with the state minimum wage, whichin some states is higher than the wages womentypically receive as unskilled agricultural workers. 82The availability of work through NREGS may alsohave had a positive knock-on effect by ‘pulling up’the wages paid to women agricultural workersin the vicinity. 83 Evaluations of the Plan Jefes yJefas programme in Argentina suggest that, whileits impact on poverty is unclear, it has reducedunemployment and helped people to move into newjobs. 84 Female participants particularly valued theacquisition of new skills and the greater probabilityof finding formal employment. 85The introduction of a social service component inSouth Africa’s EPWP is also an important innovationthat supports gender equality. Social servicework opportunities offered by the programmeinclude care of young children and home-basedcare for people living with HIV. This has benefitedwomen directly since many of the social sector workopportunities have been allocated to them. It mayalso have benefited women and girls indirectly byalleviating the burden on unpaid family caregivers. 86Ethiopia’s Productive Safety Net Programme (PSNP)vividly illustrates the potential of employmentguarantee schemes to include gender-responsiveelements (see Box 3.4). It also demonstrates howdifficult it is to make these elements work on theground. This underlines not only the need forgender-responsive programme design but also theimportance of monitoring implementation and ofeffective mechanisms for improving programmeperformance with regards to women’s rights.145