The purpose of this paper is to guide corporate decision-making in the area of social protection. In particular, the first part of the paper establishes a justification for the critical role that WFP can play by laying out how social protection is able to reduce hunger and food insecurity. This paper is intended to situate WFP’s contribution to social protection within the global social protection agenda and also to demonstrate the conceptual, empirical and practical linkages between food security and nutrition and social protection.