Recently, social protection has received attention of policy makers and researchers to use it as anrninstrument to build the adaptive capacity of the vulnerable. As learned from a range of experiences ofrndifferent developing countries, a number of social protection interventions have started tornincorporate adaptive measures as a response to the impacts of climate change. This study wasrnconducted with an objective to explore the impacts of both PSNP and OFSP, as social protectionrninterventions, to build adaptive capacity of subsistence farmers by taking the situation in Dodotarnworeda of Oromia region. The result of the study would have a significance to provide an evidencernbased data for researchers as well as policy makers on the contribution of social protection tornrespond to the consequences of climate change. It employed the Longitudinal Impact Assessmentrn(LIA) research methodology to measure the change on adaptive capacity of small holder subsistencernfarmers to the threats of climate change following the five years intervention of PSNP and OFSP.rnThe result of the study showed that â€œdistress asset salesâ€ to meet food needs have significantlyrnreduced but â€œdistress asset salesâ€ to raise cash for emergency needs such as health expenditurernshowed no change as a result of five years PSNP intervention. Impacts of implemented PW activitiesrnto harness rainwater and improve farmland soil fertility were found encouraging. The result of thernstudy also showed that PW component of PSNP have significant role to promote application ofrnirrigation for crop production. On the other hand, findings of the study have shown that implementedrnPW have little impact to reduce direct dependence of household livelihood on the sensitive climaternrelated factors, particularly rainfall. Because of the programme design limitations andrnimplementation challenges, OFSP impact to promote climate change adaption through livelihoodrndiversification and income enhancement was found poor.rnThe study showed that the combined efforts of PSNP and OFSP have started to show promising andrnencouraging result to improve the resilience of the smallholder subsistence farmers to cope or adaptrnimpacts of moderate shocks (eg failure of rainfall) but brought hardly to change resilience to copernwith impacts of extreme shocks, especially drought. Generally, PSNP and OFSP intervention havernmade significant progress to build the adaptive capacity of subsistence farmers to respond to therncurrent vulnerability. But in relation to building the adaptive capacity to respond to the medium andrnlong term trends of climate change impacts, the progrmmes have yet to bring a change and needs tornimprove the intervention quality and standards.rnIn order to mainstream climate change adaptation into the existing social protection interventionsrn(PSNP and OFSP), two important points must be critically seen by policy makers. Firstly, selection,rndesign and implementation of activities through PSNP and OFSP/HABP must be conducted with thernview of their significance to reduce the direct dependence of livelihood strategy to the climate related factors, mainly the unreliable and erratic rainfall. Secondly, both PSNP and OFSP need to focus on and give priority to activities that can enhance and promote livelihood diversification, both within and outside agriculture sector.While selecting of PW activities, priorities should be given to technologies which can promote ground water recharge and irrigation. As HABP documents seemed to properly answer the weaknesses of OFSP to diversify household income, the government needs to speed up implementation of HABP by establishing sufficient rural micro-credit service providers and allocation of adequate budget.