This paper aims at understanding: how gender-sensitive and transformative instruments promote territorial development through women’s empowerment and how these instruments can contribute to food security, rural development and poverty reduction. But first, it should be borne in mind that, usually, resources accorded to development programs are limited. For this reason it is crucial to analyze the affordability of such SP schemes according to country specificities and priorities. The paper will also evaluate to which extent the gender-sensitive Transformative Social Protection framework has wide-ranging benefits for improving rural livelihoods. The Participatory and Negotiated Territorial Development (PNTD) and its updated version Improving Gender Equality in Territorial Issues (IGETI) approaches foster bottom-up participatory decision-making processes, enhances consensus building, addresses asymmetries of power and encourages social dialogue and partnerships among a wide range of actors within a territory towards promoting gender equality in land access and territorial development.