Giving Compass' Take:

• News Deeply reports on a program in Mexico called Prospera, which gives a monthly stipend to poor women with limited education, but the strings attached to the money may cause more of a burden than anticipated.

• Women on Prospera appreciate the money, but mandatory classes and events cut into their time, and men feel less obligated to contribute to the household finances. This could be an example on the need to listen more carefully to communities and constituents in order to improve anti-poverty efforts.

• Here's another piece on how we must understand women’s justice as a dimension of poverty.

Economic empowerment programs that target women may have an unintended effect: They help men instead.

A growing number of economic development programs worldwide provide cash specifically to women in poor communities. Giving women access to money empowers them, the theory goes.

And empowered women — especially mothers — can lift entire families out of poverty.

Bangladesh’s Grameen Bank won a Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for launching a microloan program just for women. Nine Indian states give small sums of cash to poor pregnant women to encourage better pre-natal care.

I was part of a team of Mexican and American researchers who studied an ambitious Mexican anti-poverty program aimed at women. We discovered that gender-targeted government aid can have complicated outcomes, hurting recipients even as it helps them.

Read the full article about why some anti-poverty programs targeting women don't help them by Nora Haenn at News Deeply.