2026-07-01http://hdl.handle.net/123456789/407587We evaluate the impacts of a road rehabilitation workfare project in Nicaragua. Our results reveal that the substitution of labour-intensive manual paving of dirt roads for commercial paving technology did not undermine the primary goal of increasing access to a paved road, which grew by 16.4 percentage points. The project did not increase overall employment, but was associated with an increase in working as a labourer; though, we do not find specific substitution away from agriculture or self-employment as identified in other work. We also find impacts on education and health, extending similar findings from African and Asian regions.application/pdfCC BY-NC-ND 3.0 IGOhttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/igoWorld BankSOCIAL PROTECTIONPUBLIC WORKSROAD BUILDINGROADSPAVINGLABOR-INTENSIVE WORKJournal Article