The objective of this note is to better understand decent work as promoted by the ILO, and how public employment programmes (PEPs), covering the spectrum of public work programmes (PWPs) and employment guarantee schemes (EGSs), can support, but possibly also undermine decent work. It also discusses how they can be designed to support the realization of the Decent Work Agenda (DWA) and provides some examples of how this has been done in practice.