The National Commission for Social Action (NaCSA), a semiautonomous government agency, had the overall responsibility for implementation of the program. Locally, the program was implemented by independent contractors hired by NaCSA. The contractors were responsible for managing the day‐to‐day implementation of the subprojects, including the procurement of materials and other inputs, recording the attendance of workers, and making payments to beneficiaries for days worked.

To target appropriate individuals within the communities, NaCSA facilitated the establishment of community oversight committees (COCs), which were responsible for identifying the poorest households that included at least one member between 15 and 35 years of age who was willing and able to work. The COCs relied on local definitions of poverty in selecting beneficiaries. The COCs were also tasked with monitoring the progress of work and payments and resolving CfW‐related disputes.

According to the design of the project, the beneficiaries were entitled to a minimum of 50 days and a maximum of 75 days of work at a daily wage rate of Le 7,500, which was equivalent to approximately $1.80 at the time of the evaluation in 2012. The design also stipulated that the wage rate should be set lower than the market wage to discourage nonpoor applicants from participating; however, in practice, ad hoc market studies were used to determine the wage rate. Payments to beneficiaries were made by contractors on a weekly basis based on time sheets kept by the contractors.

Program rollout took place in line with a randomized phase in strategy. In early 2012, 276 communities were identified as potential recipients of the CfW intervention.<sup>11</sup> They were randomly divided into two groups: the treatment group (143 communities), which was scheduled to receive the CfW program during the evaluation period (April–August 2012), and the control group (133 communities), which did not receive the program during the evaluation period. Following the phase in design, the control group was scheduled to receive the program about four months after the treatment group. The randomization was conducted centrally by the authors. The design is summarized in Figure 1 (see Annex 1 for all figures).

One key feature of program implementation was the practice of informal rotation. It is not uncommon for PW programs in Sierra Leone and elsewhere to impose rotation. This is predicated on the principle that every eligible and willing individual in the community should have an opportunity to participate in the program. According to Subbarao et al. (2013), rotation systems are a feature of PW implementation across the world. Where the demand for employment exceeds the opportunities created, programs often opt to give the largest number of poor people a chance to work. This system plays an especially crucial role in post‐conflict settings, where considerations of fairness are central concerns within program implementation. However, rotation is often imposed in an informal and ad hoc fashion, which makes measurement and documentation difficult. Also, if not incorporated adequately into operational procedures, rotation can increase the risk of leakage.

> 11 The overall CfW program included 470 subprojects in four waves, with 108, 143, 133, and 86 subprojects in the first, second, third, and fourth waves, respectively. The randomized phase in was carried out over the second and third waves of the program; the discussion in this paper therefore refers to those two waves only.

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