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Uganda currently hosts about 1.5 million refugees. Only a fraction is likely to revert to their home countries. Therefore, a key policy question is how to help the displaced communities to integrate into Uganda's economic system. One strategy to integrate the refugees in the local economy is to provide them trainings on agricultural production or off-farm business opportunities. This study, using panel data coming from the Resilience Index Measurement and Analysis (RIMA) survey, estimates the causal impact of training activities on refugees' food security and market access. Potential endogeneity issues are addressed through an instrumental variable approach. Results indicate that, on average, agricultural training increases both market access and food security. However, disentangling thmic, the findings highlight substantial differences across population sub-groups. The impact of business training, instead, is never statistically different from zero, except for the households experiencing economic losses due to COVID-19, who mainly benefit in terms of food security. These results highlight the existence of challenges to integrate the refugees in the national economy and indicate that training activities are necessary but not sufficient to reach self-reliance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The study assesses the impact of the Ethiopia's Productive Safety Net Programme on food security and vulnerability outcomes. • Programme beneficiaries are less likely to experience food insecurity and harvest losses after droughts. • The benefits of the programme partially extend to the beneficiaries' community peers after droughts. • However, the support does not alleviate the impacts of non-drought-related stresses regardless the group considered. • The findings suggest integrating environmental and climate considerations into social protection interventions. This article uncovers the mechanisms shaping the impact of the public work component of Ethiopia's Productive Safety Net Programme (PSNP) on beneficiaries and communities' food security and vulnerability to various shocks. Using three waves of a national representative household survey, this study provides quantitative evidence on the pathways through which the social protection intervention affects direct beneficiaries and their community peers. The empirical findings show that the PSNP beneficiaries are less likely to be food insecure and to experience harvest losses in the aftermath of droughts. Notably, the beneficial effects of the programme partially spill over to the direct participants' community peers. This is likely to be due the nature of the public works implemented through the programme, such as the integrated community-based watershed development, including soil and water conservation measures and rangeland management in pastoral areas. Additionally, no significant impacts have been found when households self-report stresses unrelated to droughts. Our findings are expected to inform the debate on the effectiveness of the PSNP and other adaptive social protection programmes. From a policy perspective, they suggest the explicit integration of environmental and climate considerations into the design of social protection interventions targeting poor agricultural households highly vulnerable and exposed to weather shocks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]